


The Gibbs Project

by andipxndy



Series: The Soldier & The Spy [1]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, NCIS season 8, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-05-19 12:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 74,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5968045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andipxndy/pseuds/andipxndy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Gibbs gets a case that eventually lands him two marine-raised kids, how will he adapt to "parenthood"? [Set in Season 8/2011]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from Fanfiction.net (username: The Needless Lobsters)  
> Starting post date for the original: 12/06/2011  
> Starting post date for rewrite: 09/08/2015
> 
> Hey, guys! This is the rewritten version of my fic, _The Gibbs Project_ (the rewritten version can also be found on Fanfiction.net, on my profile). The original needed some fleshing out, and so I decided to rewrite it.  
>  Anyway, hope you like it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hey guys! This is the rewrite for The Gibbs Project, the original of which is on Fanfiction.net (username: The Needless Lobsters). I am currently in the process of rewriting each chapter, and so I will post each chapter as soon as it has been edited and/or (re)written. Hopefully the rewrite will be more accurate than the original...
> 
> Anyway, someone asked me whether I'll be using Bishop in this story. The short answer is: no. However, because the oneshots are still around, I may bring her into those. (I haven't watched many episodes with her in them, but I kind of like her, and she seems okay, so I'll use her later - not in this story).
> 
> Other than that, I didn't get any improvement suggestions apart from fleshing out the story (which I plan to do), and the whole changing the behaviours of the kids because it's not really normal for kids to witness their parents' deaths and be like that, which I agree with. Also, someone mentioned the funeral, which I shall add most definitely in later chapters.
> 
> Anyway, here's the prologue to the rewrite, and I hope you enjoy it! Read on!

It was a quiet evening in Quantico – no parties, no fighting, no screaming. Not that those were really expected on a marine base, but still. It was nice to have some peace and quiet, after a long day filled with work.

It was on that quiet evening that Lieutenant Marcus Parkson calmly headed down the street to his house, after having parked his car quite a way down (so that he could get some exercise, as suggested by his wife – not that he needed it, but he did as she told him anyway), where his family would be waiting for him to arrive home.

As he reached his front porch, taking the steps up to it two at a time, he sensed something was off. The lights were off, and he couldn’t hear his wife or his kids – usually by now they’d be getting ready for dinner…

He brought his hand up and knocked on the front door as he usually did, rapping five times, not bothering with his keys.

“Honey?” he called out. When there was no answer, he knocked again, more loudly just in case he hadn’t been heard the first time. “Honey!”

After waiting for a few more seconds, only to hear no response or any indication of someone approaching the door to open it, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, unlocking the door and pushing it open.

Peering inside, he found that the house was silent… unnaturally silent, compared to the usual shouting and laughter. He pulled out his gun and held it at the ready by his side, clicking off the safety, and crept inside and straight into the living room, where he assumed that his wife would be.

The living room was dark – the curtains had been drawn, and every single light in the room had been turned off. Which was _odd_ , to say the least. The Lieutenant reached out to the nearest wall and flicked on the lights, expecting to find an empty room.

He was horrified when he _didn’t_ find one.

The room had been turned from its calm and comforting creams to a deep, bloody red, creating an eerie scene like one from a horror movie. There were bloody handprints splattering the walls, and streaks of blood trailed across and decorated the carpeted floor. The table lamps had been smashed, and pieces of glass littered the floor. But that wasn’t what caught the Lieutenant’s eye.

Right there, in the middle of his living room (on their brand new carpet), lay his wife.

_Dead_.

The man quickly ran over to check her pulse, but from the amount of blood that surrounded her body, he wasn’t expecting it.

There wasn’t one.

As he rose slowly from his crouching position, he could hear faint footsteps approaching from behind him, causing him to tense. He knew the footsteps of each of the people in the household, and this wasn’t one of them. He spun quickly to come face to face with a masked person, raising his gun to aim and shoot at them. But the person was too close, and soon enough his gun had been kicked out of his hands and clattered on the floor, the safety still off as it skidded away.

“Goodbye,” the masked person whispered, before pulling a knife out of nowhere and plunging it into his spleen, twisting it. The lieutenant gasped in pain as he fell to the floor, only registering his own faint screams as the killer pulled out a gun and embedded a bullet in his skull.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Here's the second chapter of the rewrite, here for you! The chapter has been modified to include more detail than the original, so I hope you guys enjoy it!
> 
> Read on!

It was a usual morning in NCIS – keyboards typing, paperwork being finished, the occasional paper ball flying across the bullpen…

“Ow! Tony!”

Tony smirked as McGee attempted to glare at him. The paper ball he’d just thrown had hit him right in the middle of his forehead, distracting him from his ‘computer work’. (Or, at least, that was what he called it.)

“Oh come on, McWimpy! That didn’t hurt,” Tony teased as he turned back to his computer to continue with his paperwork… until a paper ball hit him on the head. “Ow! Hey!” He looked up sharply at Ziva, who had a smirk on her face as she innocently typed at her computer.

“Oh come on, Tony; that did not hurt,” she mimicked. Tony narrowed his eyes at her, almost scowling, and McGee winced a little.

_Oh great – here comes another war…_

Tony grabbed a scrap piece of paper and scrunched it up into another ball, pulling his arm back and preparing to throw it at Ziva.

“ _Grab your gear_!”

Tony jumped at the sudden bark and dropped the paper ball in the trash can beside his desk, before getting up and heading over to the elevator with Ziva and McGee, grabbing his backpack and coat on the way. Gibbs joined them last, closing the elevator doors behind him.

The four agents stood in the elevator quietly, waiting for the metal box to reach the basement level so that they could get into their cars.

“So, where we heading, Boss?” Tony asked finally, breaking the silence.

“Dead marines in Quantico,” Gibbs replied gruffly, not saying much more.

Ziva frowned at that, looking a little confused at what Gibbs had said. “How did more than one marine get murdered in Quantico?” she asked.

“Ask the marines.”

* * *

 

“Tony, photos. McGee, bag and tag. Ziva, interviews.” Those were the orders that Gibbs barked as the team stepped onto the crime scene. Each of the mentioned members nodded and went their separate ways to do as they were told, and Gibbs walked into the house to observe everything that was on the scene.

Bloody handprints splattered the walls, and thin streaks of blood trailed along the carpeted floor. A couple of the table lamps were smashed, and pieces of glass and china littered the floor and mixed with some of the blood, along with the rest of the broken furniture. And right in the middle of the living room were the two dead bodies, male and female.

“What have we got here?” Ducky asked, speaking to no one in particular as he walked into the house with Palmer hot on his heels, the two Medical Examiners dodging all of the broken furniture and other evidence as they made their way through. Soon enough, Ducky spotted the two dead bodies in the middle of the living room and made his way over, kneeling down beside them.

The smile that Ducky gave was almost creepy as he began to examine the two dead bodies – less the fact that the smile itself was creepy and more the fact that he was smiling down at two dead bodies. “Let’s see what’s happened here,” he said as he got to work.

Not too far from where Ducky was working, Tony was taking his crime scene photos. He sighed as he took what he felt was the fiftieth crime scene photo in the last five or so minutes, and eventually ended up looking around the place finding something interesting to do. He almost rolled his eyes when Ducky began to talk.

“Ah, it seems as if we have a Mr and his Mrs, the lovely couple. You know, this reminds me of a time–”

“Time of death, Duck?” Gibbs interrupted, before the man could get too far into his story.

“Well, from liver temperature I’m assuming that the male died just over twelve hours ago, most likely about thirteen hours ago, which makes it around yesterday evening. He was stabbed in the stomach, but it seems like this shot to the head killed him,” Ducky explained as he turned the man’s head to show Gibbs the gunshot wound. “His wife seems to have died around an hour or so earlier. She died from a stab wound to the chest, but didn’t go down without a fight.” He lifted up one of her hands, holding out the fingers so that they could look at the nails. “Pieces of skin under the nails and bruising on her knuckle – these are clear defensive wounds. Her husband, on the other hand, went without a fight, as you can see from his clean hands.” He picked up one of the Lieutenant’s hands and showed the fingers to Gibbs and Palmer in the same way he’d shown the female’s. “He would’ve had his death sprung upon him.”

Gibbs nodded, taking in the information and storing it for later. “Thanks, Duck.” He turned towards where he assumed McGee was doing as he was told. “McGee! Got anything?” he called out.

McGee looked up and headed over to Gibbs, showing him some ID that had been bagged and tagged. “The male is Lieutenant Marcus Parkson, and he was apparently on leave when this… event happened,” he explained, holding up the information for Gibbs to read.

The older man squinted to read what he was shown, before nodding. “What about the female?”

McGee flipped to the necessary piece of information, not bothering to go and retrieve her ID from the box of crime scene items. “Her name’s Petty Officer Grace Parkson, wife of the Lieutenant. She was apparently on leave around the same time as him.”

Ziva walked into the room, flipping her notebook shut as she did so, and walked towards where McGee and Gibbs stood. “I have interviewed some of the neighbours. According to them, there wasn’t much noise, maybe a gunshot or so, but they say that it was usual for them.”

“Why was it usual?” McGee asked, looking both confused and concerned.

Ziva shrugged, shaking her head to show that she didn’t know the answer to that. “They said that nothing was seen, though one neighbour claimed that there was some screaming as well as shooting. Actually, another neighbour told me that she spotted a black car pulling up to the house around five o’clock, about ten minutes after the Petty Officer got home. She claimed that she thought it was her husband.”

“I’m still wondering why hearing a couple of gunshots was the norm…” Tony wondered out loud as he took one more photo, wandering past the trio.

Gibbs was just about to snap at Tony for seemingly dawdling about when there was a crash from upstairs, and all four of the agents pulled out their guns on impulse, looking around to see if there was any immediate danger. Once they decided it was all clear, Ziva looked over at Gibbs, and the Senior Field Agent nodded, signalling that she should head upstairs first with Tony to check it out. Gibbs and McGee followed behind the two, giving the pair back-up until they reached the top of the stairs. Once they reached the landing, Tony and Ziva headed for the nearest rooms, splitting up to cover ground more quickly, whilst McGee and Gibbs headed for the rooms further back.

* * *

 

Tony opened the door slowly, wincing a little when it creaked, and found that it revealed a grey-blue room with a grey carpeted floor and blue walls. The ceiling was painted to imitate dark grey storm clouds, with streaks of white and pale blue lightening streaked across it. There was a wardrobe in the corner of the room, which was painted a deep blue to match the theme of the room, with a lightning bolt and a bald eagle on it. The bed was a simple one – dark oak frame with blue covers.

“This person’s really obsessed with blue, and storms,” Tony muttered, more to himself than anyone else. The room had a ‘stayed-in’ feeling, which was mainly cause by the posters all over the walls. Upon taking a closer look at them, Tony realized that they were all Percy Jackson posters, with each of the movie characters on them, and some pictures (probably of the book characters) that seemed to be printed out and stuck on the walls.

“Serious obsession,” Tony murmured as he moved to open the cupboard door. He opened it quickly and held his gun out, making sure it was empty before shouting, “Clear!”

As he investigated the rest of the room, he realized there were only books where anything else could be, most of them written by an author named Rick Riordan. He looked at some of the titles. _The Red Pyramid_ , _Sea Of Monsters_ , _The Lost Hero_ …

Tony sighed. “So this kid, whoever he is, is a fan of myths?” he muttered as she got up from where he’d been looking on the floor.

_Well, at least the kid is interesting._

* * *

 

As Tony had been searching one bedroom, Ziva was searching the room opposite. She opened the door silently, walking into a lounge room of some sort. The walls were painted a soft cream, and the brown carpet made it all the warmer. In the far right-hand corner there were light brown leather chairs facing each other diagonally, and in between them stood a bookcase. In the right-hand corner closer to the door stood a forty-five inch flat screen TV, and it seemed to be hooked up to a game system. Ziva had to squint as she took a closer look at what it was.

“An… X-Box?” Ziva wondered aloud, hoping that she’d got the name right. Well, there was no Tony around to correct her if she wasn’t.

Against the wall to her left stood two wooden desks, each with a chair at them; at one of them was a laptop, which seemed to be off at that moment, and the other just had papers and books on them – thin books, like workbooks. Against the wall opposite to the door stood a large toy-box, which was over-flowing with toys – whoever had put them away must have been in a rush to do so. There were a few toys left scattered on the floor, but nothing else to suggest that there was anywhere else to hide apart from inside the toy box, or behind the TV. Even behind the TV, there wasn’t that much hiding space.

Ziva cautiously opened the lid, pointing her gun inside the box so that she could threaten anyone who was hiding in there – but there were only toys within the box. She breathed a sigh of relief. _Okay, no one to apprehend here._

She heard Tony shout, “Clear!” from another room, and when she finished searching the room for hiding places, she decided to do the same.

“Clear!” she shouted. She holstered her gun and decided to check out the books on the bookshelf. The majority of them seemed to be relatively normal books, like _Pride and Prejudice_ and _The Chronicles Of Narnia_ , though there were quite a few Shakespeare books, as well as poetry books. She turned away from the bookshelf and decided to check out the TV. It was then that she realized that there was a shelf on the bottom of the TV stand, and that the shelf seemed to be covered with games cases. She knelt down to take a look at them, pulling out a couple to read the titles better.

 _Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2_ ; _Assassin’s Creed 2: Brotherhood_ ; _Mafia 2_ ; _Call Of Duty: Black Ops_ ; _Halo: Reach_ ; _Grand Theft Auto_ …

Ziva’s eyebrows rose. Whoever lived here was _way_ into shooting games… which she found quite interesting, considering both the man and his wife were marines. Maybe it was the husband who played these games? From what she knew, they could be a real stress relief.

Maybe even the murder was related to the man _playing_ these games…?

* * *

 

Gibbs slowly opened the door to reveal a room that was almost completely green. The walls were covered in what looked like a green, grey and brown “camouflage” wallpaper, and the floor was covered with a dark green carpet. The bed had green and brown covers, and the bed itself was made neatly – almost as if a marine had done them.

_If this is a kid’s room, they’ve been trained well._

The walls had a couple of posters of marines and marine-type things, as well as what seemed to be shooting video games, on them. Along the wall behind the bed’s headboard there were photos of a man and a boy.

“Probably the Lieutenant’s pictures,” Gibbs thought aloud. He noticed that the wardrobe in the corner was the only thing that was fully brown, since it was a dark wood, and he checked to see that no one was in there, opening the door slowly and pointing his gun inside to clear the space. Moving away from the wardrobe, Gibbs decided to look around the rest of the room.

Behind the door stood a bookcase, with books based on war like _Private Peaceful_ and _The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas_ on it. Not many books, but still enough to make the shelf seem used. It was as if whoever stayed in this room barely liked reading. But, other than the books, there didn’t seem to be anything else on the shelf. He even moved them and looked behind each of them for some sort of passage. He sighed. There was nothing there.

“Clear!” he yelled, not long after he heard Tony and Ziva yell. There was nothing left in the room to look at.

Just as he was about to leave to check whether there were any other rooms in the corridor to clear, he heard a yell.

“ _Boss_!” he heard McGee call from the other room. He quickly headed out of the door to see what McGee had found.

* * *

 

McGee hoped he wouldn’t find anything when he opened the door. He dearly hoped that, of all the agents, he wouldn’t be the one to find something that possibly put them all in jeopardy. Tony would never let him live it down, and would make up some name like “McBad-Luck”. _The idiot._

As he looked around the room, McGee realised that it was most probably the master bedroom, where the married couple must’ve slept. The walls were a cream colour, like the walls downstairs, but the carpet was a wine-red. There was a queen-sized bed along the far wall, which had red and cream pillows all over it, the bed neatly made… almost as if no one had slept in it ever. There was nothing else much in the room apart from a chest of drawers in the corner and a built-in wardrobe. McGee opened one of the drawers, finding nothing in there apart from some old boxes. Doing the same to each of the other drawers, McGee closed the final one with a sigh and headed for the wardrobe, only to hear whispering coming from it.

He froze. _Why him… why did it always have to be him…? Why was it always his luck that was bad?_

“Boss!” he called out shakily. There was a sound of rushing footsteps, and mere seconds later Gibbs, Ziva and Tony ran into the room. McGee scoffed. “I don’t recall having three bosses.”

“Shut up, McIdiot,” Tony snapped, his gun out by his side. “You called, we answered.”

“What is it, McGee?” Gibbs asked the field agent impatiently. McGee put a finger to his lips to quiet them before he pointed at the wardrobe.

“Someone’s in there,” he told them. The younger field agents all turned to Gibbs, as if awaiting instruction, and he nodded at them, silently ordering them to assume different positions.

Tony and McGee each grabbed one of the wardrobe handles, and Gibbs and Ziva stood back from the wardrobe, guns raised to shoot if the person – or people – hiding in there were threatening. The two younger males waited for the signal – a nod, or some kind of countdown, most likely. Gibbs looked at each of them, and then glanced at Ziva, before he nodded once. The doors were flung open, and Ziva and Gibbs held their guns only to point them at…

Two children.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I have another chapter here for you to read! This is where most of the changes begin taking place, I guess, because the characters' personalities change. But yeah, here's the next chapter, and I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Read on!

Two children in the wardrobe was not exactly what the team were expecting. They’d seen all sorts of crazy things before, admittedly, but this wasn’t expected at all.

What was even scarier was the fact that one of them was pointing a gun right back at the team, his eyes wide, whilst the other cowered behind his leg, shaking violently.

Gibbs’ glare softened ever so slightly at the sight of the two children in the wardrobe. Even if one of them was holding a gun up at him. Both kids looked terrified, and neither looked older than sixteen. Well, the youngest didn’t even look older than ten.

In the back of his mind, he noted how the children bore some resemblance to the bodies downstairs, which were currently being put into body bags and transported into the NCIS van so that they could undergo autopsy back at headquarters. _These children must be related to the dead naval officers…_

“Wh-who are you?” the one holding the gun stammered out. He seemed to be about thirteen, or fourteen, with bright green eyes and almost floppy brown hair that probably hadn’t been cut in weeks – hair that matched his mother’s. His hands were shaking as he pointed the gun straight at Gibbs.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at the kid, although he didn’t lower his gun. He had no clue as to whether or not the boy would actually shoot, and he couldn’t risk lowering his guard just in case he did. “Who are you?” he questioned right back.

The teen stayed quiet for a little while, which allowed the younger child to pipe up.

“M-mommy says we’re not allowed to talk to strangers,” she said quietly, nervously poking her head out from behind her brother’s legs. She was a small girl, looking about seven years old, with the Lieutenant’s red hair tied into pigtails and green eyes that matched her brothers. She had light freckles that covered her cheeks and her nose, and Gibbs only just noticed the missing tooth in her mouth.

Tony’s gun was the first to lower when the little girl spoke, since the others seemed so focused on the boy that was pointing the gun at Gibbs. “We’re not strangers,” he said softly, though there was a cautious edge to his voice.

The disbelief in the boy’s eyes at Tony’s statement caused Ziva to speak up.

“Look, we are just trying to help you,” she said softly, though from the way she still had her gun pointed at the boy it didn’t seem as if she was that convinced about what she was saying.

“P-prove it,” the boy retorted stubbornly.

The younger agents looked to Gibbs, who still had his eyes fixed on the boy. “Lower your guns,” he told the agents.

One by one, Ziva, Tony and McGee slowly brought their weapons down and holstered them, holding up their hands afterwards to show that they were empty and they weren’t holding any weapons.

Gibbs’ next statement was aimed at the boy. “Now put your gun down.”

The boy’s hands were still shaking, determined to hold the gun up, but eventually he lowered it, finally dropping it to the ground. As soon as his gun was dropped, Gibbs holstered his own gun, approaching the kids slowly. He pulled out his badge, showing it to them.

“My name is Special Agent Gibbs,” he told them, “and this is my team. We’re here to help you.”

“Is this about our parents?” the boy asked, almost whispering.

“Yes.” He noticed the frightened looks in the kids’ eyes, and turned to his team, motioning with his head for them to leave the room. The three glanced at each other, before shrugging and leaving, and once they were gone, Gibbs went back to talking. “What’s your name?”

The boy hesitated before answering, “Andrew.” Then he glanced down at the little girl. “This is Jessica.”

Gibbs knelt down so that he was at Jessica’s eye-level, smiling slightly at her in an effort to calm her down. “Hey, there, Jessica. It’s a nice name.”

The redheaded girl seemed to shrink back further behind her brother’s legs. “We call her Jessie,” Andrew added quietly.

“Jessie?” Gibbs glanced up at the boy, before down at the girl again. “You want me to call you that?”

The little girl seemed to hesitate for a moment, before nodding slightly, still clutching onto her brother’s legs.

Gibbs sent her a small smile. “Alright, then, Jessie, how about I take you and your brother somewhere safe?”

Jessie hesitated again, before speaking up. “Where?” she asked quietly.

“To our headquarters.” Gibbs looked up at Andrew, who had been watching their exchange the whole time. “We’ll be able to keep you safe there.”

The teenage boy nodded.

Gibbs turned towards the door. “DiNozzo!” he barked, and soon enough Tony was back in the room, holstering his gun.

“Yes, boss?”

Gibbs pushed himself to his feet. “Escort the kids back to the Navy Yard. They’re going to stay there until they can be kept under protection,” he commanded. “And get McGee in here – he needs to scan the room again.”

Tony nodded, turning to the two kids. “Hey, so… if you’d just like to follow me.”

The two glanced over at Gibbs nervously, not budging from their spot.

Gibbs gave them an encouraging smile, gesturing towards Tony with his head. “He won’t bite. Just talk your ear off.”

Andrew cracked a small smile at that, but Jessie still didn’t seem so sure, still hiding behind her brother’s legs. Gibbs knelt down again so that he could speak to her.

“Don’t worry, Jessie,” he told her softly. “I promise that he’ll take care of you. He’s taking you somewhere safe, until I can come and get you, okay?”

Eventually, Jessica nodded, and she pulled herself to her feet, clutching onto Andrew’s arm. Gibbs stood, and nodded at Andrew, before the teen and his little sister followed Tony out of the room and down the stairs to the Charger. Mere moments after they’d gone, McGee rushed up the stairs and over to Gibbs.

“Yeah, Boss?” he asked, panting a little.

Gibbs smirked slightly at the panting, but the smile quickly faded. “Scan the room one more time. Without the kids in here, we could find more clues or pieces of evidence.”

McGee nodded. “Right.” Almost immediately, before he’d even begun searching the room in detail, his eyes landed on the gun that Andy had put on the ground. “Uh… Boss?” he asked slowly.

Gibbs sighed. “Yes, McGee?”

“Wasn’t… wasn’t the Lieutenant shot?”

“Yeah.”

McGee pulled a glove out of his pocket as he walked over to the weapon, and used it to pick up the gun on the ground, holding it up to show Gibbs. “I think I’ve found a possible murder weapon, Boss.”

* * *

By the time Gibbs saw the kids again, they were in the bullpen back at the Navy Yard, both of them sat at the Senior Agent’s desk quietly. Andrew seemed to be telling Jessie things as he held her in his arms, rocking her gently. The Senior Agent just walked over to Tony’s desk, where DiNozzo seemed to be searching on his computer – whether it was something related to the case, Gibbs didn’t know, and decided that it was best if he didn’t find out right then because he had other, more important things to do.

“You done playing around, DiNozzo?” he asked, and the agent jumped, looking up at Gibbs with wide eyes.

“Uh… yeah, Boss. Although, I wasn’t playing around…”

“Where’s McGee?”

“Down with Abby, Boss. They’re going through all of the evidence together, trying to find some sort of link as to why both the Lieutenant and his wife were killed. I haven’t heard anything from them yet… although, you’d be the first one they’d call if they had evidence…”

Gibbs rolled his eyes at that. “And Ziva?”

“With Ducky in autopsy, getting information about how the two were killed and what they might have been doing just before that.”

“And what are you doing, DiNozzo?” This last question sounded almost like a tease or a mock, but Tony knew better than to ask that, and he cleared his throat before answering.

“Looking for everything there is to find about what the Lieutenant and the Petty Officer did before the night that they died.”

“And have you found anything?”

“Not yet, Boss.”

“Good.”

Tony frowned at that. _Good?_

The silver-haired field agent turned and began to walk out of the bullpen, heading for the elevator. “I’m going for coffee, DiNozzo. Head to interrogation. And get the kid in there.”

Tony just raised an eyebrow at that, beginning to stand and do as he was told. “Uh, which kid, Boss?”

Gibbs turned, giving Tony a look as if to say, ‘ _You work it out, genius_.’

“Right, the one that talks.”

Gibbs nodded, and headed straight into the elevator, the doors shutting behind him.

Tony sighed as he headed over to Gibbs’ desk, where the two children were still sitting quietly. They both looked up when Tony approached.

Tony looked Andrew in the eye. “I got orders to take you to interrogation, kid,” he told him, “so we should get moving.”

Andrew seemed to tense. “Now?”

“Yes.”

“What about Jessie?”

Tony sighed. “I’m sorry, but she can’t come with you.”

“But—”

“It’s the rules, kid.”

Andrew sighed, before moving, sitting Jessie on the chair and standing up. The little girl whined a little, clutching onto his arm, and he hushed her, kissing her on the forehead. “I’ll be back soon, okay, Jess? I promise.” That didn’t seem to do anything to make her release her grip, but after a few more moments of convincing, the boy finally managed to convince his sister, who resorted to curling up on Gibbs’ swivel chair. The boy stood with a sigh, turning to Tony. “Let’s go, I guess…”

Tony nodded, and he began to head towards the interrogation rooms, and with one last glance back at his sister, Andrew followed him, fiddling with his thumbs as he walked.


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Sorry this has taken so long, but I have the next chapter ready for you!
> 
> Read on, and enjoy!

When Jessie was next found, it was by Ziva, who had come looking for Tony or Gibbs to relay the information she had received from Ducky, considering neither of them were answering their phones. She was very confused when she found the bullpen was empty… and then she heard the quiet sobbing.

The Israeli approached Gibbs’ desk slowly, and was surprised to find the little girl curled up on his swivel chair, seemingly sobbing. She knelt down beside her. “Hello?”

The sobbing noise stopped as the little girl jumped, startled by the sudden voice, and she peeked over her shoulder to see Ziva kneeling there, watching her. “H-hi…” she replied, her voice almost silent.

Ziva gave her a comforting smile. “Do you happen to know where the other two agents are supposed to be? DiNozzo and Gibbs?”

Jessica took a while to answer, hesitating for a good minute or so before she opened her mouth to speak. “Interrogation,” she mumbled softly. So softly that Ziva didn’t hear.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart? Could you please speak up?”

“They’re in interrogation.” Jessica’s voice was still quiet, but this time Ziva heard her, and she nodded, smiling a little at the little girl, and stood fully. She glanced around for a few moments, before looking into the bullpen next door.

“Hello? I have a witness in here – would you mind keeping an eye on her until I return?” After receiving a murmur of agreement she headed over to interrogation to see what was happening with the males.

* * *

 

Andrew just sat quietly at the interrogation table, alternating between looking around the room and staring at the one-way mirror. He had an idea of who was behind it – after all, he knew who had brought him in here – but he wasn’t too fond of the fact that he couldn’t see exactly who was there. That, and he wasn’t really all that sure what he had been brought in for.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, the door to the interrogation room opened, and Andrew looked up to see Gibbs walk into the room, a folder in his hand as he moved to sit down on the other side of the table. He watched as Gibbs set the folder on the table, slightly curious as to what was in there, but then looked up when the older man spoke.

“So, Andrew?”

Andrew’s eyes darted to the side nervously before he looked over at Gibbs again. “Uh… yeah?”

Gibbs smiled slightly as he looked down at the folder in front of him. “Andrew Parkson…”

“Is that my file?” the teen blurted out suddenly, looking down at the thin file that Gibbs had placed on the table.

Gibbs made a face, shrugging slightly. “It could be,” he admitted. “It might not be, though.”

“You’re not sure?” At the look Gibbs gave him, the teen corrected himself. “Oh, you just don’t want to tell me?”

“Not yet.”

Andrew took a deep breath. “Okay, okay, what do you… what do you need to know?”

“What happened last night?” Gibbs asked, being rather blunt (though his tone of voice didn’t mirror that) as he pulled out a notebook and a pen.

The boy took a moment to think before starting to explain. “Well, I got home at around seventeen-hundred hours,” he paused at the raised eyebrow that Gibbs gave him, before going on with his explanation, “…after bringing Jessie home from her karate class, because I did some track at school. I remember telling my little sister, Jessica, to get changed out of her Karate _Gi_ before getting some leftovers from the fridge and heating them up for our dinner. As soon as she was change, she came down, and we ate. At about eighteen hundred hours, our… our mom came home and told us to go upstairs and get our homework done because it was a school night. About fifteen minutes after that, we heard the front door open pretty loudly – both of us actually came out of our room when we heard it – and there was a load of crashing downstairs: plates crashing, furniture breaking, and etcetera. Jessica and I, we ran downstairs to see what was going on, and we saw our mom fighting some masked person. She told us to run, and we headed straight upstairs. We didn’t see what happened after that… but I remember hearing my mom scream.”

Gibbs nodded, scribbling it down in note form before looking back up at Andrew. “Do you have any idea what the intruder was doing there?”

Andrew shook his head. “N-no… but I think they were looking for something. After… after…” He gulped, taking a deep breath. “I heard footsteps, someone coming upstairs. My sister and I headed straight for our parents’ room, which is furthest from the staircase, and we hid. Whoever it was didn’t get far in their search, because we heard the front door open and our dad calling at around nineteen-hundred hours… I think.”

Gibbs nodded again. “Alright then. And you two didn’t see anything?”

“We were upstairs the whole time.”

“Okay. One last question: the gun, where did you get it?”

This was where the teen tensed. “It was dad’s. He always keeps a spare in his room in case of emergencies.” His eyes widened. “You don’t honestly think…”

“We just need to know – you were holding a weapon at the crime scene, and we need to cover all the bases.”

The manner in which Gibbs was speaking hinted to Andrew that he should calm down, but it had the exact opposite effect. He began to get angry, his face reddening slightly.

“Do you _really_ think that I would kill my own _father_?!”

“Did I not just say that we were covering bases?”

“I would never even _think_ about killing him!”

“And I respect that. But you were holding a weapon at a crime scene, and we need to clear you as a suspect. That’s all.”

Andrew grit his teeth. “That’s all.”

“That’s all.”

“Fine.”

Gibbs couldn’t help but roll his eyes a little at the teen as he got to his feet, picking up the folder and making his way towards the interrogation room door. Just as he reached the door, he heard Andrew call out,

“So what’s in that folder anyway?”

Gibbs paused as he opened the door, contemplating his answer for a few moments before replying with a simple, “Classified.”

* * *

 

It was moments after Gibbs started the interrogation that Ziva entered the observation room, joining Tony, who had been watching Andrew’s behaviour from the moment he’d been sat in there. She stood by him for a few moments before speaking.

“Has he been in there a while?” she asked Tony, who in response shook his head.

“Gibbs has barely been in there five minutes.”

“The boy looks nervous.”

“He should be. He’s in interrogation with Gibbs.”

“But what is there to be nervous about?” At the look Tony gave her, Ziva rolled her eyes. “Yes, he is Gibbs, but he would not be that nervous unless he was hiding something.”

Tony scoffed at that. “Like what?”

“Like that gun. The one he was holding.”

“If you think there’s something with the gun, then maybe you should speak to Abby about it.”

“She is still analysing the evidence.”

“Why don’t you wait with her until she’s done?”

Ziva sent a small smirk Tony’s way. No – you are not getting rid of me that easily, Tony.”

Tony returned the smirk. “Who said I was trying to get rid of you?”

“Oh, so you do not want to get rid of me?” She took a teasing step towards him, tilting her head slightly as she smiled innocently at him.

Before Tony could answer, the door to the observation room opened, and McGee walked in, causing the other two to jump apart quickly. McGee caught this, though, and merely raised an eyebrow at them before continuing with what he had arrived for. “Abby has some lab results, guys. She’s wondering why Gibbs isn’t answering his phone.”

Tony gestured towards interrogation. “He’s talking to a suspect,” he pointed out, as if it was obvious.

McGee looked into the interrogation room and frowned. “He’s not a suspect. He’s a witness.”

“We only saw him with the gun in the wardrobe,” Ziva pointed out. “He is a suspect.”

“Not from Abby’s lab results, he’s not.”

The other two agents shared a look, before quickly gesturing to McGee to continue, at which he shook his head.

“Not until Gibbs comes out.”

* * *

 

As soon as Gibbs emerged from the room, all three of his agents were standing there – McGee looked as if he had a genuine reason to be there, whereas the other two just looked curious; something that caused Gibbs to raise an eyebrow before he turned to McGee, the only person who seemed to need to be there. “Yes, McGee?”

“Uh, Abby sent me up here, Boss,” he explained. “She said she couldn’t reach you.”

“I was in interrogation.”

“Right, I can see that.” He cleared his throat a little. “She’s got the lab results for the gun that the kid was holding.”

Gibbs nodded, handing the folder he was holding to the agent before heading off down the corridor. “Thanks, McGee.”

McGee stared after him, bewildered for a moment, before calling out, “What about the kid?” At Gibbs’ lack of an answer, he turned to Tony and Ziva, both of whom shrugged before walking past him, patting him on the shoulder.

“He’s all yours, Probie!” Tony called out as the two headed in the direction that Gibbs had gone, leaving McGee to groan in frustration before walking into the interrogation room, where Andrew was still sat at the table, watching the door.

He gave the teen a small smile. “If you’d like to come with me, please.”

Andrew frowned, but stood anyway, heading over to the door where McGee stood. “Where are you taking me?” he asked hesitantly, not sure what was meant to happen next.

“I’m going to take you back to the bullpen, where I can keep an eye on you,” McGee answered, turning back to face forward at the teen’s nod. It was as they were reaching the bullpen that the agent heard a stomach rumbling, and he turned to the teen, whose face had flushed red.

“Sorry…” Andrew mumbled.

“Hungry?” McGee asked, as if it were obvious.

“I didn’t exactly get breakfast this morning…”

The agent nodded as he led Andrew over to Gibbs’ desk, where Jessie was curled up, fast asleep. The teen smiled, and moved to shift his sister more comfortably on the seat.

“Does pizza sound good to you?” McGee asked as he moved over to his desk, picking up his phone as if he was getting ready to make a call. When he received a nod, he dialled a number that was all too familiar to him – if only because Tony had made him memorise it.

* * *

 

“What’ve you got, Abs?”

“You are _late_!” The dark-haired forensic analyst spun to face Gibbs, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed with her hands on her hips. “I tried calling you _ages_ ago, Gibbs! Where _were_ you? I had all of this evidence waiting for you and—”

Gibbs merely placed the Caf-Pow! on Abby’s desk, silencing her almost immediately, and smirked at the look she gave him.

“ _One_?”

He placed a second on the desk, and mere seconds after that Abby was babbling away.

“So I analysed the gun that you said the kid was holding, and it was, in fact, registered to the Lieutenant, hence the two sets of fingerprints I found on it – the kid’s, and his father’s. _But_ , I found one crucial fact.” She turned to Gibbs with a small smile on her face.

“It hasn’t been fired recently?” he asked, earning a grin from Abby.

“Bingo!” She pressed a button on her computer keyboard. “It hasn’t been fired for months, by the looks of it, and every single round was in that gun and accounted for. The bullets _do_ match the ones that killed the Lieutenant and the Petty Officer, but they weren’t from this gun. They came from…” Another gun, almost identical to the Lieutenant’s, came up on the big screen. “…This one! This gun _has_ been fired recently, and was found downstairs – right near the Lieutenant’s body.”

“Got a registration for the gun, Abby?” Gibbs asked.

“Way ahead of you, Gibbs – the gun belongs to a Petty Officer Mary-Anne Miller. Sending you the address now.”

“Thanks, Abs.” He placed a quick peck on her cheek before walking briskly out of the lab, leaving behind a grinning Abigail Sciuto.


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys! It's been a while - a long while - and I apologise for that dearly. But life has really been getting in the way of my writing. So, recently, I've been trying to write a lot more, and get some chapters out, and I managed to do this one! I hope it's a good chapter, though.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

“So, how are you feeling?”

Andrew looked up to see Ziva walking into the bullpen, holding four cups of hot beverage – one large, two medium and one small. She placed the large one on McGee’s desk, nodding in response to the thanks that she received, before heading over to Gibbs’ desk where Andrew was sitting with his little sister curled up on his lap, dozing away. She placed down one of the medium cups and the small cup on the desk, smiling slightly.

“Hot chocolate, with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles – I hear that it is good for any time of year, especially as we are at the colder end of the spring.”

Andrew nodded in appreciation, smiling in return as he picked up one of the cups and put it to his lips, taking a sip. "Thanks," he murmured. "Jessie'll appreciate the drink when she wakes up."

Ziva nodded. "That is good. But... you did not answer my question."

He took another sip before setting the cup down. "What was it again?"

Ziva took a brief sip from her own cup of coffee, before speaking. "How are you feeling, Andrew?"

He paused for a moment, considering this as he noticed McGee get up out of the corner of his eye and head over to the elevator. "I... I don't quite know? I'm okay, I guess." He shrugged a little. "I'm not exactly sure."

She just nodded, seemingly understanding. "It is difficult, I understand. But you will get through it. I know you will. You are young and adaptable."

He took a deep breath, looking away, and didn't say anything in response.

She simply nodded, as if to emphasise her point, before moving back over to her desk and beginning to type away, getting back to her work on the case.

It was silent in the bullpen from then on, the only sounds being of Ziva's fingers flying across the keyboard and the occasional click of the mouse, along with Jessie's light breathing. Andrew appreciated the peace, though he didn't particularly like the fact that it allowed him to dwell on his thoughts. What Ziva had said – what she had _meant –_ was now going through his mind, causing his breathing to quicken as his heartrate increased.

The shifting of his younger sister snapped him back to reality, and he began to calm himself down, taking deep breaths and closing his eyes. Unfortunately, his actions didn’t go unnoticed by Ziva.

“Andrew?”

“I’m fine,” he snapped unintentionally, still trying to calm himself down.

The female agent seemed slightly taken aback by his response, but let him be nonetheless, not wanting to bother him. Andrew knew that he should’ve felt bad for snapping at her, but he just couldn’t bring himself to feel any remorse.

After a good few minutes of silence, the elevator dinged, and McGee walked into the bullpen holding two large pizza boxes, a smile on his face.

“Pizza, anyone?”

* * *

 “So you really think this Petty Officer has anything to do with the Lieutenant and his wife’s deaths?”

Gibbs slowed down as he turned onto a street, glancing around for oncoming cars before speeding up slightly. “Well, it’s possible.”

“But do you think so?”

“You never know, DiNozzo. Keep your eyes on the damn GPS.”

Tony narrowed his eyes a little at Gibbs, before looking back down at the device in his hands, staying quiet for a few moments before he spoke up again. “We’re there, Boss.”

“Where?”

“Next house on the right.”

The Charger screeched to a stop in front of the house, almost causing Tony to lurch forward in his seat. The Senior Field Agent just about managed to avoid glaring at Gibbs as he set the GPS down on the dashboard and began to grab his stuff – or rather, collect himself before getting out of the vehicle. The Senior Supervisory Agent, on the other hand, had already turned off the engine and was shutting his car door after climbing out, heading over to the front door already. Tony scrambled out of the car to catch up with him, straightening his suit a little as he reached Gibbs. He was barely ready when Gibbs knocked on the door.

A few moments later, the door opened to reveal a woman, probably in her late thirties or so, with shoulder-length blonde hair and hazel eyes. She was neither short nor tall, standing at an average 5’7”, and from how straight she stood, it was fairly easy to guess that she either had been or was a part of the Navy.

“Petty Officer Miller?” Gibbs asked.

The woman raised an eyebrow at the two men, before nodding. “Yes… who are you?”

The agents pulled out their badges, flipping them open and revealing their ID cards to the woman. “Special Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo, NCIS.”

She nodded, moving aside for them. “Right, right… please come in.”

The two men walked into the home, and as soon as the door had been shut behind them the Petty Officer led them to her living room, offering them seats and drinks (which both men politely declined) before sitting down herself, in the armchair across from the couch where the agents sat.

The woman took a deep breath, looking between the two agents, before asking the question that had been on her mind. “So… what brings you here?”

Tony glanced at Gibbs, clearing his throat before speaking. “We’re here to speak with you about the deaths of Lieutenant and Petty Officer Parkson, ma’am,” he informed her, earning a pained gasp from the woman.

“Grace and Marcus are… _dead_?”

Tony turned to Gibbs with raised eyebrows, green eyes meeting blue. Well _that_ reaction was unexpected.

“When?” she demanded.

Gibbs leaned forward so that his elbows were resting on his knees. “They were found dead this morning.” Before she could say anything, he continued. “Ma’am, where were you at 1700 yesterday evening?”

She blinked for a moment. “I was here, at home, getting dinner ready for my daughter. She comes home late from school because of clubs…” Her eyes widened. “You don’t honestly think—”

“A gun registered in your name was found at the scene of the crime,” he explained. “Your fingerprints were found on it, and the weapon had been fired fairly recently.”

“That couldn’t have been me.”

Tony frowned. “And why not?”

She huffed. “I reported my gun missing _weeks_ ago. It was stolen.”

That was an interesting turn of events – stolen gun, and no fingerprints to identify who would’ve taken it. The two males glanced at each other before turning back to the woman.

“Ma’am… we’re going to need a list of names of everyone who could’ve stolen the gun – as in, everyone you came into contact with around the time that the gun went missing.”

* * *

 When Tony returned to the bullpen that afternoon, his nose was assaulted by the scent of baked dough, meat and vegetables, and his mouth started watering almost immediately.

“Where’s the pizza?” he asked, eyes wide as he looked at all those in the bullpen.

Ziva continued to type away at her computer, a small smirk appearing on her face. McGee actually had the audacity to look up at Tony and grin slightly, before going back to his work. Even Andrew had a slight grin on his face as he held his sister close to him, letting her nap lightly against his chest.

Tony frowned as he looked between them. “Where’s the pizza?”

“We ate it,” Ziva answered calmly, expecting an uproar from Tony. And that’s exactly what she got.

“You _ate_ it?! _All of it_?!” He looked between the occupants of the bullpen with wide eyes, before wailing. “And you didn’t even leave me any! Why are you all so cruel?! How could you—?”

“I saved you a slice,” McGee said with a sigh, rolling his eyes. He _had_ to stop the agent before he got a headache from his whining.

The anguished expression on Tony’s face immediately morphed into one of glee. “Oooh, where is it?”

McGee gave Ziva a look, and she sighed, before reaching into one of her drawers and pulling out a pizza box, handing it to the excited Senior Field Agent.

“There you go.”

Tony immediately opened the box, his face dropping as soon as he saw what was in there.

One _measly_ slice of margarita.

“What the…?!”

Ziva and McGee grinned at each other, before going back to their work, ignoring Tony’s continuous whining.

“ _Where did all my pizza go_?!”

“Hey, David! Thanks for the pizza!” someone called out from one of the other bullpens, and there were choruses of “thanks” and “great pizza” from all around the office, turning Tony’s pained expression to one of horror as he turned to look at Ziva.

She shrugged. “I didn’t know when you would be back, and I needed to get rid of the evidence.”

“Soulless, you are. Soulless.”

Mere moments later, a notepad with sheets covered in names was dropped in front of Ziva, and she looked up at Gibbs with a frown on her face. “Yes?”

“I want you to track down every single one of the people on that list and find out where they were last night. DiNozzo, you look for anyone that was connected with the Lieutenant and the Petty Officer, find out where they were last night and their history with the two,” he demanded, walking briskly through the bullpen with a coffee in one hand. “I have a meeting with the Director. Get working.”

“Yes, Gibbs,” Ziva replied, at the same time Tony answered, “Yes, boss.” The two shared a glance, before Tony moved to sit down. As he walked over to his desk, he called out over his shoulder, “And whilst you’re at it, you should order me more pizza.”

Ziva laughed, rolling her eyes at him. “As if that is going to happen, Tony!”

* * *

 Gibbs didn’t actually reappear in the bullpen until that evening, and fingers were still typing away at computers, searching for information and going through database upon database upon database. Ziva seemed to be on the phone, making calls and speaking in fairly hushed tones, whilst McGee was alternating between typing and sipping from a cup of coffee. Tony had a takeout pot of Chinese by his side, and from the lack of overwhelming smell it seemed that he’d only bought some for himself and not for the others. Probably as payback for the lack of pizza left behind for him at lunch. Andrew and his little sister, Jessica, were both asleep on Gibbs’ chair, Andrew leaning back into the chair and Jessie curled up on his lap, head resting on his shoulder.

Gibbs walked straight over to McGee’s desk, since he seemed to be the least busy out of the three agents in the bullpen, and nodded when he looked up. “What’ve you got?”

“Well, I’m currently searching every single camera in their neighbourhood, boss,” McGee explained. “Police cameras, traffic cameras, house alarm cameras… any cameras that show anything suspicious around the time of the Lieutenant and his wife’s… you know.” He gave a little shrug. “Found nothing so far, and the neighbours haven’t reported anything other than a car outside their house. The car’s so common, though, and no one remembers a plate.”

Gibbs nodded at that. “Keep at it, McGee. Head back to the neighbourhood tomorrow and see if you can get any more information on that car.” At McGee’s nod, Gibbs headed over to Tony’s desk. “What’ve you got, DiNozzo?”

Tony quickly swallowed the chow mein in his mouth, clearing his throat. “Well, boss, I’m currently looking up the details of all the people that came into contact with the Lieutenant and the Petty Officer throughout their careers.”

“And?”

“Nothing so far. It’s a pretty long list, boss – I haven’t even got halfway down yet. And of the ones I’ve checked, they all seem to have pretty clean histories with the two. I was gonna check alibis in the morning, when everyone’s… you know, up and working?” At the deadpan look Gibbs gave him, he cleared his throat. “I’ll do it first thing.”

“You’d better, DiNozzo.” Gibbs turned to Ziva just as she was getting off the phone, and noticed how she rubbed her face with her hands before looking up at him.

“Nothing here either, Gibbs. I just got off the phone with another person on the list you gave me, and they have a pretty strong alibi – I followed it up, and it checked out.”

At the mention of Ziva being on the phone, Gibbs turned to raise an eyebrow at Tony, who gave him a sheepish grin through the food in his mouth.

“Not to mention that half the people on this list have now been stationed overseas, and it takes a while to get in contact with them anyway. And all of the ones I’ve checked have clean histories anyway.”

Gibbs nodded at that. “Good work, David.”

Ziva smiled a little at that, before turning back to her work.

Gibbs looked around the bullpen at his agents, before his eyes landed on the sleeping kids. He stared at them for a few moments, his brain moving quickly, before he turned to the agents. “Go home.”

All three agents looked up at him sharply, slight frowns on their faces. As if they hadn’t quite understood what Gibbs had said. The grey-haired man rolled his eyes before speaking again.

“Go home, get some rest, and be here bright and early tomorrow.”

Tony huffed, inhaling another mouthful of Chinese. “I’d rather stay here overnight.”

Gibbs have him a look. “Feel free to do so, DiNozzo. I’ll be in my own bed whilst you’re at it. Just don’t forget to freshen up before we get in this time.”

Tony shot Gibbs a short glare, before he wiped it off his face. “Yes, boss.”

Gibbs just smirked at Tony’s reaction, before heading over to where Andrew and his sister were, gently placing a hand on the teen’s shoulder. The boy jerked, his eyes shooting wide open in surprise before they settled on Gibbs’ face.

“Huh?”

“Come on, we’re going.”

“Going?” The teen rubbed a tired hand over his face, being careful not to jostle his sister. “Going where?”

“Protective custody,” Gibbs explained shortly. “You’re staying with me. Come on.”

Andrew blinked at Gibbs for a moment, slightly shocked, before he gently shook his sister awake. “Jessie… Jess? Come on, wake up.”

She whined, murmuring something incomprehensible for a moment before opening her eyes and looking up at Andrew. “Hmmm…?”

“Wake up,” he repeated. “We’re going now.”

“…Where…?” she mumbled sleepily, rubbing her eyes as she sat up.

“With me,” Gibbs stated, causing the girl to suddenly look over at him, and then shy away a little. He offered her a small smile, despite it not helping to bring her out of her shell. “Come on.”

Jessica glanced up at Andrew, her green eyes questioning, and upon receiving the small nod from him she stood, reaching for her brother’s hand as the two of them followed Gibbs out of the building.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Sorry it's been a while! I've been really busy lately, so it keeps taking a while before I have to time to finish writing up chapters for you guys to read. I apologise for that - I can't promise that later updates will be faster, but I'll definitely try.
> 
> Anyway, this chapter got done and dusted, so I hope you enjoy it!

The car ride was practically silent on the way to Gibbs’ place, the only sound being the revving of the engine and the occasional whisper from Jessica to her brother. And it didn’t help at all that Gibbs wasn’t much of a conversationalist, if at all.

They had originally planned to make a stop off at the Parkson residence to gather some clothes (the children’s request) but the entire scene was evidence, and so they couldn’t even walk back into the house yet. So Gibbs had taken them straight back to his place.

At that moment, the two kids were sat at the back of the car, Andrew seated behind the front passenger’s seat and Jessica curled up against him, her head leaning on his shoulder. The little girl was flitting in and out of sleep, her brother running his fingers through her hair to keep her

As soon as he pulled up to the Gibbs residence, he turned to the two at the back. “Dinner?”

The two children glanced at each other nervously, before Andrew shrugged, smiling down at his little sister. “What would you like for dinner, Jessica?”

The little redhead was silent, just staring up at her brother, and when Gibbs realised that he wasn’t going to hear anything from Jessica he shut off the engine and got out of the car, shutting his own door behind him before opening the door beside Andrew to let them out. Without a word, he then headed up to the front door and opened it, walking in and expecting them to follow.

The senior agent was slightly surprised to hear a small voice pipe up behind him when he was looking through the fridge for anything he could whip up quickly for dinner.

“Can we have takeout, please…?”

Clear blue eyes looked over the top of the fridge door to meet a pair of green ones, and his eyebrows rose. “Takeout?”

The little girl shied away a bit, taking a step back and seemingly trying to hide (though there wasn’t really anything to hide behind unless she moved to the other room.

Gibbs saw this and his face softened, and he moved away from behind the fridge door, kneeling down a little so that he was kneeling, closer to her height. “Sure, we can have takeout tonight. Anything in particular that you want?”

The little girl stayed silent, hugging herself as she moved backwards out of the room, and then ran back over to her brother. Gibbs just sighed, getting to his feet before heading out to the living room, where the two children were just sat on the couch, just staring up and out of the window. When the older man cleared his throat, they both jumped, eyes wide.

He jerked his head in the direction of the stairs, giving the two a small smile before turning towards the stairs. “Come on, you two.”

The two got up and began to follow, the boy speaking up. “Where are we going?” he asked as they reached the bottom of the stairs, looking up after Gibbs.

Gibbs paused halfway up the stairs and looked back down at them. “Your rooms.” At the looks on their faces – or rather, the look on Andrew’s face – he smiled a little. “What, did you think you were gonna sleep on the couch?” he asked as he turned back around and continued his way up the stairs.

Once they all reached the upper floor, Gibbs pointed at the first room on the right. “Bathroom,” he stated, before turning to the first room on the left and opening it. “First bedroom here.” He looked at the two, before kneeling down so that he was more at Jessica’s height. “Would you like this room?” he asked her softly.

The redhead clutched to her brother quietly, staring at Gibbs with wide eyes, until Andrew nudged her gently towards the room. “Go on,” Andrew whispered with a soft smile. “Go and take a look.”

Jessica looked between the two males with wide eyes, before hesitantly moving towards the bedroom door and pushing it open.

The room were much like the rest of the house – a pale cream, with a dark brown floor (which was carpet instead of wood) and beige curtains on the windows. It was neutral, but warm, and there was a single bed against the wall to the right with brown and cream bed sheets, a chest of drawers at the foot of the bed and a wardrobe against the wall to the left. Other than that, though, the room was pretty bare.

Andrew leaned against the doorframe as his little sister walked into the room, looking around before moving to the bed and sitting on it, swinging her feet. He smiled at her. “You like it?”

The little girl smiled at her brother and nodded, still swinging her legs.

“Good.” He moved off the door, before turning to Gibbs. “I’m guessing that I’ve got my own room?”

The Senior Supervisory Agent nodded and moved down the corridor, gesturing for the boy to follow him.

Andrew gave Jessica a quick, “I’ll be right back,” before following Gibbs down the corridor to a room that was on the same side of the corridor as Jessica. Once he reached the door, Gibbs gestured to it, and the teen pushed it open, walking inside.

The layout was pretty much exactly the same as Jessica’s room, from the carpets on the floor to the curtains on the windows. Even the covers looked exactly the same. The only difference was that this room was ever so slightly bigger than the previous one, and the chest of drawers were next to the wardrobe instead of at the end of the bed, leaving a whole lot more space in the room.

The teen smiled as he looked around. “It’s… nice, I guess.”

Gibbs just nodded. “Glad you like it.” He was just about to turn away to leave when he paused, clearing his throat. “Takeout?”

Andrew’s response was almost automatic. “Chinese. Jessie’s favourite.”

The agent smiled as he turned to walk down the stairs, heading for the phone. Looked like they’d be having Chinese takeout for dinner.

* * *

The following morning, instead of being greeted by the smell of coffee and a bark of, “What’ve you got?”, Tony was greeted with a phone call and, “You and Ziva – get me clothes and cereal. Now.”

He didn’t even manage to get a word in edgeways before the call was ended, and Tony sighed, putting the phone down before looking over at Ziva, who was typing away at her computer.

He was pretty sure that he’d been staring at her for a little too long, because the next thing he realised, she had an eyebrow raised at him and was telling him to “stop staring because you look like a creep”. _That_ got him to turn away.

“Were you trying to catch my attention?” she asked with a slight frown, “because you most certainly have it.” At his lack of response, she spoke again, “Who was on the phone, Tony?”

“Gibbs.” DiNozzo stood, catching McGee’s attention from where he had been typing away at his computer, barely even noticing the two were talking. “He wants us to get clothes and cereal.”

McGee frowned. “All of us?”

“No, just me and Ziva,” Tony replied as he grabbed his coat and threw it on, looking over at the woman. “Come on.”

Ziva blinked at him for a moment. “Wait… are you serious?”

Tony paused what he was doing, nodding slowly. “Yes…”

She sighed, before pushing herself away from her computer and grabbing her own coat, standing and pulling it on. “Then let’s go.”

Tony grinned a little, grabbing the keys to the car as he headed to the entrance of the bullpen. “Clothes first?”

“Of course – they’ll take the longest,” Ziva answered as she joined him.

“I always thought food would?”

“That is with _you_.”

“Oh.”

“See you later McGee!” Ziva called out as she entered the elevator, which had just arrived, giving him a small wave.

“Hold down the fort for us!” Tony called out, giving him a grin as the doors slid shut.

McGee blinked for a few moments, before sighing and going back to whatever he had been searching. “Why is it always those two that get out and do stuff…?”

* * *

It was at least two hours later when Tony and Ziva arrived at Gibbs’ house, pulling up into the front drive just behind his car and parking. The two climbed out of the company car, grabbing a bag of groceries (that contained at least four different types of kids’ cereals, which Ziva had never heard of before) and a bag of clothes (all of which Ziva had picked – Tony’s sense of style was too expensive for two kids’ whose fashion senses and preferences they didn’t know) before heading up to the front door and walking in. After all, Gibbs never kept the front door locked when he was home.

As soon as they entered, they were met with a teenage boy holding what seemed to be a vase as a weapon, his eyes wide. He seemed to calm a little when he recognised the two agents, but didn’t lower the vase.

“Why are you here?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at them.

Tony merely raised an eyebrow at him. “We’re here to see our boss, kid,” he answered, his lips quirking up into an amused smirk as he began to move forward. Andrew stepped in his way.

“What for?” he asked… or, rather, demanded.

“He wanted some stuff,” Tony answered, trying to step past the teen but not succeeding. Eventually, he just sighed, before calling out loudly, “GIBBS!”

The Senior Supervisory Agent appeared from the basement just moments later, in a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants and a sander in his hand. “About time you got here, DiNozzo!”

Ziva stepped forward to speak this time, and Andrew actually let her past (earning him a glare from Tony). “We are sorry, Gibbs, but I made the mistake of allowing Tony to pick out clothes.” When Gibbs blinked at her, she sighed. “It lasted all of half an hour. I picked them out in ten minutes.”

Tony scoffed. “Yeah, well, you were going to give them _Bran_ for breakfast!”

“I did not know that children didn’t eat it!”

Andrew’s nose wrinkled, and he decided to interrupt. “Who would give a kid _Bran_ for breakfast?” he asked, looking at the woman incredulously.

“ _Exactly_!” Tony exclaimed.

“Well, I am _sorry_ that I—”

“Give us the damn clothes and food and _get back to the office_ ,” Gibbs snapped, shooting the agents a short glare before walking over and grabbing the grocery bag from Tony, heading over to the kitchen. “Andrew, you can take the clothes upstairs to yours and your sister’s rooms and freshen up.”

Andrew hesitantly put the vase down, before slowly taking the bags of clothes from Ziva. “Um… yes, uh, sir,” he called out, before heading up the stairs.

Tony and Ziva shared a glance, the female sniggering a little when Tony mouthed, ‘ _Sir?_ ’ with a small and confused frown on his face, before heading over to the kitchen, where Gibbs seemed to be getting the cereals out and setting them on one of the counters. Both of them seemed to loiter around for a moment, before Tony spoke.

“Hey, Boss?”

“Yeah, DiNozzo?” Gibbs asked without even looking over.

“If the kids didn’t have any cereals… what did they have for breakfast?”

“Pancakes.”

“Ooooh, got any left?”

At the glare that he received, Tony quickly turned and began to head out of the room, muttering a quick, “We need to get back to the office,” to Ziva and pulling her out behind him. The female gave Gibbs a small smile and a wave as she left the residence, and when the door shut the grey haired man heard the patter of footsteps, before the two children appeared at the entrance to the kitchen.

“What did they buy?” Andrew asked as he walked into the kitchen to take a look, now dressed in a green t-shirt and a pair of fairly loose, very casual jeans. He seemed very comfortable in them, despite the fact that he wouldn’t really need to be wearing the jeans until he went out.

His little sister, on the other hand, was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a pink t-shirt – both of which were a little on the large side, but she looked like she could deal with it – and holding a book to her chest. Perhaps she was a little too small for clothes in her age group…

“Cereal,” Gibbs answered simply, sending them both a small smile before sighing. “How about… we go out grocery shopping for dinner? I’ve got to head to the office later, but we need to get you some food and some more clothes by the end of today.”

Andrew just shrugged at that, not seeming too bothered with the whole idea, before he turned to Jessica, offering her a small smile. “Sound good to you, Jessie?”

The little redhead’s eyes flickered between Andrew and Gibbs a couple of times, the girl seemingly considering her answer, before she gave a small nod, hugging the book tighter to her chest. Andrew gave her an encouraging smile, before turning back to Gibbs. “Yeah, sure, we can do that.”

Gibbs nodded, scrunching up the paper bag that the groceries had been brought in and throwing it into the trash. “Great. Did those two bring you any more clothes, other than what you’ve got on?”

“Well, I think Jessica got a pair of jeans and a cardigan, or something along those lines?” He frowned slightly. “Maybe it was a sweater…”

“Both of you get something warm on,” Gibbs told them. “We’ll go out and get you stuff when you’re ready.”

The two nodded, Andrew answering with, “Yes, sir,” as they turned to head upstairs.

“And Andrew?”

The teen paused, turning to look back at Gibbs with wide eyes, worried that he’d done something wrong.

“It’s Gibbs, not _sir_.”

The teen smiled slightly. “Yes s—I mean, Gibbs. Yes, Gibbs.”

Gibbs nodded with his own slight smile, and the teen took that as his cue to follow his sister up the stairs and find something a little warmer to pull on over his t-shirt so that they could head out.

As they disappeared up the stairs, Gibbs couldn’t help the fond smile that came over his features at the boy’s behaviour. “Trained to respect like a marine…” he muttered to himself, before he headed down to the basement to put things away so that they could go.


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, guys! I've got another chapter up for you! I think I'm writing a lot faster now than I used to (hence the update being here in just under a month) so I hope you guys are happy about that!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the chapter!

It was a good day or two before Andrew and Jessica Parkson were able to go back to school again, because there was no way that Gibbs would be able to take care of them the whole day every day until the case was over.

Of course, by the time they got back to school, the news had spread. And even if the news _hadn’t_ spread, people were noticing changes in behaviour.

Like levels of concentration.

“ _Mr. Parkson_!”

Andrew’s head snapped up from where he’d been staring at something he’d drawn on the desk about ten minutes ago, his mind drifting off to who knows where. After blinking for a few moments, he realised that the teacher was actually _talking_ to him, and he cleared his throat, trying to plaster a smile onto his face. “Yes, sir?”

The teacher took a deep breath, sighing as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Yes, he pitied the boy for the loss of his parents – no child could go through a thing and come out the same – but his _behaviour_ on the other hand…

“ _Please_ try to concentrate in my lessons. Everyone in here _knows_ that you want to go ahead and join the marines once you’re done with education, but at least give this class a chance, okay?”

The teen bristled slightly at the patronising tone he received, but he took a deep breath and nodded, forcing himself to calm down. “Yes, sir.”

The teacher nodded, before addressing the rest of the class. “Right class, so today…”

Andrew zoned out again, losing interest until he felt a tap on his shoulder. He frowned slightly and looked over to see his closest friend, Alice, smiling slightly at him, an eyebrow raised. With lightly curled blonde hair, straightened and cut into a bob that stopped by her jaw, and big, almost doe-like, brown eyes, Andrew thought she was pretty cute.

He’d never tell her that to her face, though.

“Are you at least _trying_ to listen?” she asked him quietly, a smile playing on her lips.

He glanced back over at the teacher for a moment, trying to understand what was going on, before looking back over at Alice. “Nope,” he replied, a slight grin on his face.

She rolled her eyes at him, shaking her head, before looking back over at their teacher.

Within a few minutes, she was back to talking with him again, though this time it was because the whole class had burst into chatter, going on about something or other that the teacher had said – either way, Andrew hadn’t caught it, and he wasn’t particularly bothered about that either.

“So… what are you gonna do?”

He blinked, raising an eyebrow at Alice. “Uh… what?”

She sighed, rolling her eyes at him again. “Oh, come on… you know what.”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“The English project! We have to write an essay on something that’s happened to us – an important, or fascinating event in our lives…” she trailed off at the end when she noticed his face harden. “The teacher also suggested that it was something upbeat, not traumatising, so that he doesn’t have any of his students breaking down in the middle of the task.”

“Yeah, yeah…” He shrugged a little. “I have no idea what to do, I guess. The task sounds kinda boring to me.”

“It doesn’t sound _that_ boring.”

“You’re right, it sounds _very_ boring.”

Just as Alice was about to retort, the bell rang, and students around them began to rise from their seats, packing away their stationary and books so that they could leave the classroom. Andrew and Alice were the last to actually begin doing so, most of the students having left by the time they’d shouldered their rucksacks full of school supplies and started heading for the door. Just as Andrew was passing the teacher’s desk, he heard his name being called out and he stopped, mentally groaning.

“Mr Parkson?”

The teen turned to face the teacher, plastering on a fairly fake smile. “Yes, sir?”

The teacher raised an eyebrow at that, before continuing. “I was impressed with your essay on the military last semester, Andrew.” He seemed to paused before going on. “I hope to see the same high standard with this essay.”

Andrew just stayed silent, not exactly sure what to say, before he spoke again. “Is that all, sir?”

The teacher frowned, before shaking his head slowly and turning to the blackboard, beginning to rub everything off. “Yes, that’s all, Andrew.”

“Thank you, sir.” The next time the teacher spoke, the teen had just reached the door, and what the teacher said caused his eyes to widen and his breath to hitch.

“Oh, and Andrew? We are all very sorry for your loss.”

* * *

Andrew didn’t know whether he was glad to see the NCIS company car pull up or not.

On one hand, it prevented him from having to talk to anyone on the bus because he wouldn’t be getting off at his regular stop and he was pretty sure that _everyone_ had been staring at him at school that day.

On the other hand, he was pretty sure that the car would just bring more whispers. Because Andrew _never_ got picked up by a car. And you generally weren’t _allowed_ to pick up your kid from the bus stop. It was a _bus stop_.

Either way, the teen was greeted with a smirking face of Tony DiNozzo as he rolled down the window. He scowled slightly at the older man, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the fact that he was wearing sunglasses, even though it was barely spring. In the agent’s defence, it was pretty nice weather.

“What are you _doing_ here?” the teen hissed, narrowing his eyes at Tony. His eyes just narrowed further when he heard people beginning to mutter under the bus shelter behind him.

Tony slipped the glasses up so that they were perched on his hairline, before talking to Andrew. “Why, I’m here to pick you up, of course!”

“I take the bus,” Andrew stated, looking none too impressed.

“Well, does the bus stop off at the Navy Yard?”

“I don’t think—”

“Then get in the car.”

“ _Andy_!”

Andrew turned to look over his shoulder, spotting Alice running towards the bus stop. She seemed to have a fairly confused look on her face as she neared, slowing down as she realised that he was near a car – a car that clearly didn’t belong to anyone in his family.

“…Andy?” she asked slowly. “Uh… aren’t you taking the bus today?” She glanced between the boy at the car, obviously confused.

Andrew looked between Alice and the car, clearly fairly conflicted. He wanted to take the bus with her, but… there was a reason why the agent was picking him up. And, to be fair… he was only picking him up to be safe, right?

Then again, was anything that was happening really fair on him?

At the lack of an answer, Tony sighed and slid his sunglasses back onto his face. “I’m sorry, miss, but Mr Parkson won’t be taking the bus today.” He sent Andrew a look, which he hoped the boy could see through his sunglasses, before turning back to Alice. “He’s being kept under watch.”

“Like a criminal?” Alice asked, a slightly confused look on her face.

“No, like a witness.” Tony looked over at Andrew, who seemed to be scowling slightly. “Andrew, please, get in the car.”

The teenage boy took a deep breath before moving to open the back door to the car.

“Andy?” Alice looked thoroughly confused now. “What’s going on?”

He spared one glance back at her. “I’ll tell you tomorrow, okay? Promise.” Before she could get another word in, he climbed into the car, shutting the door and allowing Tony to drive off, leaving a fairly large group of confused students behind, waiting for their buses.

Once they were a good distance away from the school, Andrew sent Tony a glare. “What was that for?!”

Tony raised an eyebrow at Andrew. “What was what for?”

“You didn’t need to make such a huge scene!”

“Andrew, that was probably the smallest scene that could be made. You’re lucky that Gibbs didn’t come to pick you up.” Tony let out a light chuckle. “Now _that_ would’ve been a scene.”

* * *

“So what’s up with you and that girl anyway?”

Andrew ignored the adult, continuing to brood as they made their way up in the elevator to the floor with the agents’ bullpens, hopefully so that the agents could keep an eye on him. Or, rather, them – his little sister, Jessica, was already there according to Special Agent DiNozzo, having been brought in by Ziva as soon as school finished. Apparently she’d put up far less of a fuss than Andrew had, but the teen thought it was probably due to the fact that his little sister had become unnaturally subdued recently. Which worried him a lot.

Jessie used to be this bright, annoying little redhead of a sister, with a wild imagination and a love for books and art and anything that could get her mind thinking and her imagination rolling. Last he knew, she was moving onto the bigger novels, despite her young age. She even enjoyed writing her own stories, though she definitely wasn’t that great at that. No, she preferred to stick to her drawing.

But all of that – all of that creativity and artistic ability, along with her bubbliness and her very positive outlook on life – had disappeared. Just like that. As soon as the screaming fighting had started, everything had turned upside down for her – for both of them.

It would be stupid for Andrew to think that he hadn’t changed as well.

He was so drawn into his thoughts that he didn’t realise he was already walking into the bullpen, and Tony had to place a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

Though, instead of slowing the boy down like the hand was intended to, it instead caused to boy to jerk violently, pushing Tony’s hand off his shoulder and nearly shoving the agent away. He managed to stop himself just as his hand hit Tony’s arm, instead giving a slap instead of a shove.

Tony frowned as he rubbed his arm. “Hey!”

Andrew’s face blanched as he stepped away from Tony.

“You know, attacking a federal officer is an offense!”

Andrew took another step back from the agent, his breathing quickening. Tony didn’t seem to notice, though – the only one who seemed to notice was McGee, who was the only other agent in the bullpen at the moment, since Ziva had taken Jessica down to Abby’s lab in an attempt to cheer her up a little and get her to do something fun.

“Hey, Andrew…?” McGee nearly jumped at the speed at which Andrew turned to look at him, his green eyes wide. “Are you… are you okay…?”

That was when Tony seemed to notice that something was wrong, and his hand fell from his arm as he took a closer look at the boy. “Hey, kid, are you alright? You look a little on the pale side.”

Andrew looked between the two adults with wide eyes, his breathing picking up, before he turned and walked speedily away, muttering a quiet, “Excuse me,” as he went to find the nearest toilets.

As soon as he got into the men’s room, he sped over to one of the stalls, locking himself inside, throwing his bag down and sitting on the floor, his head in his hands as he tried to calm down.

“What did I just do…?” he whispered to himself as he tried to take deep breaths to calm down. After a good little while, he managed to calm down a little, his breaths coming out at regular intervals and his head not spinning as much. He leaned his head back against the wall of the stall, his hands resting on his knees.

What _did_ he just do? He’d pushed the guys, yes… but why? All he’d done was place a hand on his shoulder – it wasn’t as if he’d attacked him or anything. And Andrew didn’t really have an aversion to touch or anything. So why had he acted like that…?

Instead of dwelling too much on that – it was probably a one off, or something he could ask himself later when he felt a bit calmer – he reached for the rucksack he’d dumped at his feet upon entering the stall and opened it, sticking his hand inside to see whether he had any homework that he could be bothered to complete.

As he rifled through his back, his hand closed around something small, and he frowned slightly. He didn’t remember packing anything so small into his bag at any point… when had that ended up in there?

Before he could pull whatever it was out to get a better look at it, he heard the door to the men’s room open. “Andrew? You in here?”

The teen tensed slightly at the sound of McGee’s voice, before forcing himself to calm down, calling out, “Yeah, I’m here. Just… just gimme a sec, okay? I’ll be right out.” He clenched the item in his hand one last time, before letting it settle at the bottom of his bag, vowing to take a better look at it later.

* * *

Right after dinner that night, Andrew made his way up to his room and shut his door. It wasn’t unusual behaviour for the teen or his sister – neither of them really knew the man currently protecting them, and there didn’t seem to be anything available to entertain them apart from a TV downstairs which didn’t even have the channels they enjoyed watching – just boring old news.

And Gibbs never really intruded on what they were doing either. Which was why Andrew knew he was pretty safe when he picked up his rucksack and emptied its contents out onto the bed in the room he was staying in, books and papers spreading on the sheets with pens and pencils intermingled… and a small rectangular object, the size of an eraser, landing on top of the messy pile.

The teen carefully picked up the object and looked at it more closely.

It was grey, almost silver, and a very smooth plastic, no words written on it at all to signify what it was. It was very plain, other than a small, slim band of black wrapped around it to split it in two – not evenly, but into about a quarter and three quarters of its length. Almost on instinct, he pulled the object apart on either side of the black line, slightly surprised when the smaller part slid away almost easily, revealing a USB head.

He frowned slightly. “A… flash drive?” He flipped the thing over and noticed that there was something engraved into the side of it.

**_GP_.**

His eyes widened slightly.

_The teen frowned slightly as he watched his mother rummage through her handbag, looking for something that was seemingly important. All he knew was that he’d been called up to his parents’ room for something important, and now he was just waiting there for his mother to get something to give to him. Of course, he had other things to do, so he didn’t exactly want to be waiting there **forever** …_

_“Mom, what are you looking for?” he asked innocently. Even though he was thirteen, bordering on fourteen, he was pretty sure he could still pass for innocent at times._

_His mother didn’t even look up from her search, continuing to go through her bag. “Something very… aha!” His mother smiled as she brought a flash drive out of her bag. It was a dull grey-silver, and it had the initials ‘GP’ engraved on one side of it. She handed it back to him and closed her bag, not turning to look at him until she’d done so. Whilst she was tidying her things away, Andrew studied the rectangular object with a raised eyebrow._

_“This…?” He waved the thing about a little bit as he looked his mother in the eye. “What is it?”_

_The petty officer gave him a look. “It’s a flash drive, honey,” she stated, almost sounding patient with him. “Come on, isn’t that obvious, honey?”_

_Andrew rolled his eyes a little at that. “I can **see** that, but why are you giving it to me? It’s got your initials on it.”_

_His mother turned briefly to put her bag on the floor, smoothing out the bed sheets. “It’s got valuable information on it, Andy; too valuable for me to keep.” She stood straight and turned to her son. “I trust you to keep it safe.”_

_He frowned slightly and moved past her to sit on the bed, ignoring the slightly annoyed look he received from her as he messed up the sheets. “Has this got anything to do with your last trip overseas?”_

_The Petty Officer sighed, seemingly reluctant to say anything, but eventually she spoke. “Yes, honey,” she replied hesitantly, sitting on the bed beside him, “but please… keep it safe.”_

_He pursed his lips before looking up at her. “Can the information get you sent to jail?” Andy asked as he studied the memory stick again._

_“It can get one of my colleagues sent to jail, but not me. I’m… waiting for the right time to tell my boss about it.” Grace reached up and caressed her son’s cheek gently. “Do you promise to keep it safe under all circumstances?”_

_The teen paused, looking down at the object in his hands as he twisted it with his fingers. Eventually, he looked up at her and nodded. “I promise.”_

Andrew nearly dropped the flash drive, his eyes wide as his hands shook.

This was what she’d been talking about. The flash drive… it must’ve had very important, very valuable information on it that she could have passed on to her boss.

And whatever she’d collected… someone had found out she’d collected it, and she’d been killed because of it. Her and dad.

And now, he had it. And if whoever was looking for it found out that he had it… well…

He would be next.


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was doing so well with updates, but then lots of stuff came up at once, and I tried to get this done and posted yesterday, but... eh, things came up. So here's a slightly later than promised (I guess) chapter!
> 
> Enjoy!

Green eyes stared up at the ceiling, barely blinking. The room was dark, the only light being from the crack in the door because of the lights on the landing, and a small strip of light coming in from the street lamps outside.

Andrew couldn’t sleep. It had been about two days since he’d discovered the flash drive in his bag, and that was all he could think about now. Even at school. Of course, no one really noticed, because they all still thought his mood was pretty sour from everything that had happened… and it was, yeah. He snapped at teachers, yelled at other students when they irritated him, glared at people who stared or whispered when he got picked up… but the flash drive was at the forefront of his mind the majority of the time.

Like right then, when he was meant to be trying to sleep. In fact, he hadn’t really slept well at all since he found it, the worry getting to him. (Not that he’d been sleeping well ever since… you know. Nightmares had become his worst enemy since he was placed in protection, and Andrew was pretty glad he didn’t scream much. He didn’t exactly want to alert or bother the agent he was staying with…) He should tell Gibbs… shouldn’t he? After all, they were trying to find out who killed his mother – maybe the USB could tell them why it happened, and give them a clue as to who did it?

But then, if it was extremely sensitive information… he could get arrested or even killed for withholding it, or having it in his possession. After all, he was just a civilian – he wasn’t meant to be holding government-level secrets. Not at his age, anyway.

His hand reached out to the bedside table, pulling open the drawer and reaching inside to grab the flash drive.

_“It’s got valuable information on it, Andy; too valuable for me to keep.”_

His fingers ran over the drive, feeling the initials engraved into the side.

_“I trust you to keep it safe.”_

Eyes glancing over at the slightly ajar door, he sighed, before sitting up and running a hand through his hair, his fingers tugging on the ends a little bit. The words, “ _Don’t do that_ ,” ran through his mind in his mother’s voice, and he smiled momentarily before sighing heavily, rubbing his eyes.

“I need a drink…” he muttered to himself, putting the flash drive back where he found it before pushing himself off the bed and making his way over to the door, pulling it open and walking out onto the landing.

As he padded towards the stairs, he paused by the room his little sister was staying in, pushing the door open slightly and taking a peek inside

The room was pretty much just as dark as Andrew’s had been, the only sounds being the slow and steady breathing of the little girl as she slept. On the bed, only tufts of her red hair could be seen above the covers, the rest of her face hidden under the sheets.

The teen smiled softly at that, before moving back out of the room, closing the door so that it was slightly ajar again, and heading down to the kitchen. Other than the landing, nowhere else in the house seemed to be lit, so Andrew had to figure his way around using the walls and what little he remembered of the house during the day, along with what little light streamed in through the windows from the street. Eventually, after a couple of bumps and the occasional stubbing of his toe, Andrew made it into the kitchen, flicking on the lights and setting about his task of making the warm beverage.

And within the next fifteen minutes, he was leaning against a counter, the hot chocolate in his hands (after searching a whole five minutes for all of the ingredients in a pretty unfamiliar kitchen) and thoughts still flashing through his mind about that flash drive.

Part of him knew he shouldn’t be thinking so deeply about it – after all, that was what had gotten his parents into trouble – but he was curious. What was _on_ that flash drive? Who _wanted_ it? He was tempted to take a look, just so that he knew what he was up against.

And part of him just wanted to give the thing up. After all… wasn’t it evidence now? The drive was the reason for his parents’ demises, he just knew it. If the NCIS agents could figure out what was on the drive…

 _No_. His mother had ordered him to keep it safe, and he didn’t know whether the agents would, or even _could_. What if it contained state secrets? Then he could be arrested for being in possession of the thing, and his parents wouldn’t be given anything honourable to be remembered by – they’d just be thought of as criminals. Terrorists, even.

Jessica, little Jessie, would be left to fend on her own – adopted by a family who would know nothing about her and wouldn’t be able to help her at all. And she’d be _sad_ and _lonely and…_

That train of thought ended as soon at the teen realised there was no more hot chocolate entering his mouth from the mug, and his green eyes flicked down.

 _Oh. It’s empty_.

He gave a sheepish grin to no one in particular, before heading over to the sink and leaving the mug in there, hesitating for a moment as he considered whether or not he should do the dishes. That was when he remembered that he was meant to be _asleep_ , and he shook his head, heading out of the kitchen and back towards the stairs so that he could attempt to sleep again.

It was as he was starting to head up the stairs when he realised he could hear a faint sound, like something scraping against something else. He paused on his trek up the stairs and frowned slightly, staying as silent as possible to try and hear the noise. When he heard it again, he looked around, wondering where it was coming from, and descended the stairs.

It was when he descended the stairs and started moving towards where he heard the sound was coming from that he realised that there was a door that was slightly ajar, and there was light filtering through the gap. He approached slowly, pushing the door open further and slipping through the gap.

As soon as he stepped through, he realised it was the door to the basement, and his eyebrows rose, the teen descending the stairs slowly so as to not alert whoever was down there to his presence.

Of course, all thoughts of not alerting anyone of his presence flew out of the window when he saw what was down there, and gasped.

There was a boat.

In the _basement_.

And the teen was pretty sure he would’ve sounded even crazier if he’d spoken those words out loud.

The man down there, seemingly working on the boat, didn’t even turn to look at Andrew as he continued to descend the stairs, though from the gruff voice the teen could easily tell who it was.

“You’re still up,” Gibbs stated as he continued to sand down one of the pieces of wood on the boat’s skeleton, trying to smooth it before adding on the outer pieces of the boat.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Andrew stated absentmindedly as he reached the ground and made his way slowly over to the boat. The teen finally managed to get Gibbs to look up at him when he started slowly running his hand over one of the rungs, smiling slightly at the smooth touch.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. “You like boats?”

Startled green eyes met cool blue, and Andrew hesitated for a moment before answering.

“My… my dad, he…” the smile faded off his face as he recounted the memory, “…he used to take me boating… and fishing. And… and we had this boat. We, uh… we built it together, him and I. And grandpa.” The small smile reappeared. “We tried doing it again, without grandpa, but… that failed. So we stuck to smaller projects.”

Gibbs watched him carefully for a few moments, before holding out the sander to the teen. A smirk threatened to appear on his face when Andrew gave him a surprised look, his eyes flickering between the sander and Gibbs’ face.

“Wanna help?”

“Uh…” Andrew hesitantly reached out and took the sander, weighing it up in his hand for a few moments, before moving to the boat when Gibbs gestured to it, slowly beginning to sand.

_With the grain, Andrew, with the grain! You’ll ruin it if you do it like that! You want to sand it, not destroy it!_

The words in the voice of his father caused Andrew to jump slightly, stumbling back from the boat and accidentally tripping his own feet.

Gibbs looked up from where he had been rifling through his tools for another sander to find the teen trying to pull himself up off the floor. He frowned slightly. “You alright?” he asked, moving around the boat.

Andrew nodded quickly, offering a flash of a smile before focusing his eyes on the boat. “Y-yeah… yeah, I’m good. Just…” he shrugged slightly, “haven’t done any sanding in a while.”

The agent smiled slightly and nodded, heading back over to his tools.

The two stayed in silence for a little while, Gibbs going through his tools and getting everything he needed (and having the occasional sip of bourbon) whilst Andrew sanded the boat and let his eyes wander for a couple of moments at a time, until Andrew’s eyes landed on something in the corner of the room, and he set the sander down, moving towards it.

Gibbs just watched him with a raised eyebrow, and both eyebrows went up when he realised that Andrew was actually picking up a case for one of his sniper rifles.

“Uh… what’s this?” the teen asked, looking over at Gibbs.

“…Sniper rifle,” Gibbs answered simply, taking a sip of his alcoholic drink before getting up and grabbing the sander that Andrew had put down to continue the sanding himself.

“A sniper rifle?” The manner in which the teen almost rushed to put the box down on a flat surface and open it made Gibbs smirk a little. The choked “Woah…” that the teen let out almost made Gibbs chuckle.

“You interested in that sort of stuff?” the elder male asked, pausing in the sanding and looking over at Andrew.

The teen opened his mouth to say something, before pausing and nodding. “I… I always wanted to be a marine, so… I dunno, this kind of interests me.” A slight, almost nervous smile, grew on Andrew’s face as he reached out tentatively and ran his fingers over the gun. “I… I kind of want to be a sniper. I’m good with long distance shooting with bows and arrows…”

“Ever fired a rifle?”

“…No. Never been allowed to.”

Before Gibbs could say anything about there, there was a whimper and a wail from upstairs, and Andrew turned to look toward the door with wide eyes. He then looked back at Gibbs, worry clear in his eyes.

“My sister…”

“Go.”

It seemed as if Andrew barely even needed the instruction, because less than a second later, he was ascending the stairs two at a time, leaving the basement door ajar as he went to attend to his sister.

* * *

Andrew’s pen tapped almost nervously on the desk as his eyes scanned over the letters and numbers repeatedly, trying to get them stuck in his head.

Boy, did he _hate_ algebra. It was one of those things that went in one ear, and straight out the other.

Even his math teacher had once said he was a lost case. Granted, the teacher had been angry and Andrew hadn’t been listening, but it was still hurtful, even if it was true.

His eyes flitted up to see his little sister, Jessica, sitting just across from him, seemingly colouring something in with a set of colouring pencils that the lab tech – Abby, was it? – brought her. At least it kept her relatively calm, to be honest, and it allowed them to have some peace and quiet for a couple of hours until Gibbs thought it was safe for them to come out and sit with the rest of the team, or they were leaving. That was pretty much how it went after school now.

The two jumped when there was a gentle knock on the door, though Jessie jumped much more than Andrew, and the teen called out a quiet, “Come in.” The lab tech they’d seen before, Abby, poked her head through the door, a gentle smile on her face.

“Hey, how are you?”

Jessie almost immediately began to focus on her colouring, seemingly not wanting to communicate with this woman at all.

Andrew shrugged. “Okay…” he mumbled.

Abby’s eyebrows rose. “You sure? I mean, the conference room isn’t exactly the most comfortable room in this building…”

“We’re sure.” He shot her what he hoped was a smile, but from the look on her face it was probably a poor attempt at one.

“Well, if you say so… because my lab’s always free!”

“Yeah, okay.”

Abby shot him one last smile, glancing over at Jessica, and began moving back out of the room, before she suddenly remembered something and popped her head back in. “Oh, I just remembered something!”

The two children jumped again, glancing over at her with wide eyes.

“What do you want for dinner?”

* * *

“What’ve you got?”

McGee was the first to look up when Gibbs walked briskly into the bullpen, tapping a couple of times on his keyboard. “I got a hit on the car that was spotted outside the Parksons’ house, boss. It was a rental – I called the rental agency, but it turns out the name they gave was fake; it didn’t come up anywhere. We were able to get a trace as to where the car went, though.”

“Get me security footage.”

“Tony and Ziva are already getting security footage of the neighbourhood and surrounding traffic signals.”

“Actually, we are back from getting security footage,” Ziva answered, carrying what seemed to be a fairly small box. Tony walked in behind her, carrying practically nothing.

“DiNozzo, we need more footage,” Gibbs said, barely sparing the agent a glance as he began to move behind his desk to sit down. “You and McGee, go to the places the rental car visited. Ask questions, get footage.”

Tony nearly groaned. “I have to go out _again_?” At Gibbs’ glare, he grabbed his coat and put it on. “Right, come on, McGoo – we’ve got security footage and information to collect.”

McGee rolled his eyes at Tony as he grabbed his coat and transferred the information needed to his cell phone. “Coming,” he called out, sending Gibbs a small smile as he passed him and left to join Tony in the elevator.

Gibbs rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly. Honestly, they could be like children sometimes… “Get the footage down to the lab, Ziva, and have a look at it with Abby.”

Ziva nodded as she threw her coat onto her chair and headed towards the other elevator, heading to the lab. “Got it, Gibbs.”


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, guys! So, I have the next chapter here for you all to read! I hope you guys enjoy it!
> 
> Read on!

“So we went through the security footage, boss, and did a whole load of interviews… nothing came up other than the fact that with the car there was a woman.”

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at McGee as he took a sip of his coffee. “That it, McGee?”

“Blonde hair, about average height,” Tony clarified. “She was seen at every location the GPS tracked her to, but she was always turned away from the security cameras so we don’t get a clear view of her face.”

“I found the same thing with Abby,” Ziva added, “but in one of them, she had an accomplice. And it was not always she who was driving the car. I spotted at least one other, maybe two.”

“Facial recognition?”

“They were also turned away from any cameras at all times.”

“And the locations they stopped at?”

“No one paid attention to them, or recognised them,” McGee explained. “It’s a dead end, boss. We can’t get anything on the killer.”

“Don’t you mean _killers_ , McGeek?” Tony corrected with a grin. “There’s more than one now, which means there’s more of a chance of catching them. One of them’s got to have made a mistake.”

The bullpen was silent for a few moments as they all tried to think, before Ziva suddenly spoke, shooting up from her seat.

“I _did_ find something from the security footage with Abby,” she exclaimed, grabbing the clicker and pointing it at the screen. After a few clicks, a photo of the car came up. The face of the driver couldn’t be seen clearly at all, but that wasn’t what Ziva was focused on. “You see the passenger, just there? What is she wearing?”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “You’re questioning her fashion now?”

Gibbs squinted a little at the screen, before gritting his teeth. “She’s in Navy uniform,” he answered, before turning to McGee. “McGee, pull up any and all military personnel the Lieutenant and Petty Officer have been in contact recently.”

“That could be a lot, boss…” McGee pointed out.

“Both of them recently came back from active duty,” Ziva added. “Perhaps it was something that happened whilst they were _on_ duty, rather than off duty.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down by much.”

“It does when you realise that it was the Petty Officer that was killed first,” Tony said, leaning on his desk. “And she put up a fight, right? The killer was after her.”

“All navy personnel that the Petty Officer was in contact with on duty, got it,” McGee said as he swung his chair round to face the computer, clicking and tapping away at his keyboard.

“All _female_ personnel,” Gibbs added. “Don’t put any _dudes_ in there.”

Tony and Ziva both shot Gibbs quizzical looks at his language, before turning away at the glare he gave them both, trying to conceal their smirks.

Just as Gibbs was about to turn and leave the bullpen, he spotted Vance standing on the upper floor, and he sighed, changing his direction from the elevator to the staircase and climbing up two at a time. He ignored the confused looks his agents gave him as he made his way up to the Director, almost finished cold coffee in hand.

“Yes, Director?”

“Come into my office,” he answered simply, and Gibbs pretty much had no choice but to do so with a raised eyebrow.

* * *

Andrew didn’t know why he did it, but he ducked his head as he walked into the library after school, heading quickly for one of the computers along the back wall after he signed in – after all, students had to sign in whenever they were spending time in there after school. The teachers couldn’t exactly let them have free reign.

As he approached the row of computers, he headed for one in the far left hand corner, behind the bookshelves and away from any wandering eyes, before plopping himself down in the seat and placing his bag on the desk beside the keyboard. He rummaged around inside it for a few moments before his hands clasped something small, and he pulled it out to reveal the flash drive. He smiled slightly, before plugging the device into the flash drive port and waiting for the appropriate window to pop up.

His brow furrowed in confusion when the window eventually _did_ pop up.

“What?”

* * *

“So, this case you’ve got, Gibbs,” Vance started as he sat at behind his desk and gestured for Gibbs to take a seat in front of him. When Gibbs refused to do so, he just continued, “I’ve had a look at the case files you’ve got for it.”

“Got them off Abby?” Gibbs asked nonchalantly.

“Well, I didn’t exactly want my ear talked off by your field agents.”

Gibbs quirked a small smile at that, but his eyebrow was raised, questioning exactly why he was still in that office.

“I see no record of the kids having a guardian, Gibbs.”

“They’re under protective custody,” the Senior Supervisory Agent answered.

“And what about after the case? What’s going to happen to them then?” When Gibbs didn’t answer, Vance took it as his cue to continue. “I have a feeling that you haven’t had your agents look too deeply into this.”

“We need to make sure these kids aren’t under threat before looking for places for them to go.”

“Well, considering they don’t have any living family, it seems as if—”

There was a beeping sound from Vance’s desk, and the Director turned to his desk phone, pressing a button. “Yes?”

“ _We have a visitor for you, Mr. Vance. The child psychologist._ ”

“Send her in,” Vance replied simply, pressing the same button again before turning back to Gibbs. “Now, regarding the kids and their future—”

“You want them to see a shrink?” The outburst made Vance narrow his eyes at Gibbs, and the agent decided to rephrase what he was saying. “Sorry, a _child psychologist_.”

“From what I’ve seen of this case, they _need_ one, Gibbs.” Before Gibbs could speak, the Director held up a hand, and then gestured to the door as it was opened.

A fairly smart looking woman, with neatly tied up blonde hair and sky blue eyes walked slowly into the room, wearing a pristine black suit and white blouse, and black heels to match. Under her arm she held what seemed to be a manila folder, and Gibbs sent Vance a look.

“You’ve given her information on the kids already?”

Vance ignored what he said in favour of standing and gesturing over to the woman as she approached his desk, the door to the room shutting behind her. “Agent Gibbs, meet Miss Penny Bloomfield, the child psychologist I was talking about.”

Gibbs resisted the urge to point out that Vance had barely even mentioned her, instead standing and turning to face the woman before shaking her hand, though he didn’t even try to smile. “Special Agent Gibbs,” he introduced himself.

“Penny Bloomfield,” she returned with a pleasant smile. “From what little I’ve heard about you, Gibbs, you seem like a remarkable man.”

Gibbs raised an eyebrow, before shooting Vance a look. The Director just shrugged, though he had a small smirk on his face.

“Why don’t you show Miss Bloomfield down to the bullpen?” the Director suggested. “I’m assuming the kids are there?”

Gibbs turned to look at the child psychologist again, seemingly trying to decide whether Vance’s suggestion was a good idea or not, before nodding. “They should be getting back from school now.” He let go of her hand and turned towards the door, gesturing for her to join him.

The woman shot a small smile back at Vance before following Gibbs over to the door, smiling at him slightly when he held it open for her. “Thank you.”

Gibbs just nodded and shot a look back at Vance. “You owe me coffee.”

* * *

_A password?_

Andrew had no clue what this thing was on about, and whether or not it was the machine or the actual flash drive messing with him, but he sure as heck didn’t remember his mother mentioning anything about a password for this thing.

_Maybe because she knew I’d try to get into it?_

Okay, so that was a good reason, but what if someone else needed to get into it? That would mean that they would have to know the password. And since he was pretty sure that his mother didn’t tell anyone about it (apart from maybe those people who… who killed her…) he was also sure that no one else knew the password.

Unless it was the school blocking it off, in which case he was screwed because he’d be seen trying to hack into a memory stick that was clearly not his if he didn’t get the password right.

Heck, the school could have been monitoring his computer activity right then.

That caused him to swear under his breath as he pulled out a notebook and a pen, and began jotting down ideas for all of the different passwords his mother could have used. He was pretty sure that this was going to take a good _while_ …

* * *

The bullpen was pretty quiet when Gibbs returned, though he had a feeling that it was probably because they’d been messing about just before he got there and they were now just curious as to what had happened between their boss and the Director.

And if it wasn’t the silence that told him, then it was most definitely the scrunched up paper balls lying on the floor by their desks.

Bloomfield looked around the bullpen with a raised eyebrow, taking slow steps in. Momentarily, she glanced up at the agents sitting at their desks, typing away furiously as if to try and seem like they had been working all along. Finally, she turned to Gibbs with a raised eyebrow.

“Are you sure these aren’t the children I should be evaluating?”

Gibbs just shrugged as he strode past her to his desk – the only desk that was clear of paper balls. “You’re free to evaluate them if you want,” he quipped as he sat down, smirking slightly when he noticed Tony’s jaw drop out of the corner of his eye. “They haven’t been evaluated in a while, so a child psychologist like you could do them some good.”

“Boss, I’m not—” Tony practically froze at the look Gibbs gave him. “Getting back to work, boss.”

“So if these aren’t the children I’m meant to be evaluating,” Penny started, raising her voice a little so that all four pairs of eyes landed on her, “where are the actual children?” She hesitated for a moment, waiting for someone to answer. “Well? Anyone?”

“Andrew stated that he would be attending an extra-curricular activity after school today when he was dropped off this morning,” Ziva spoke up. “He also said that Jessica would be doing the same.”

Gibbs frowned. “What club?”

“He said something about football.”

“Go get him.”

The other three agents stared at him in confusion, each of them frowning a little.

“He didn’t say anything to me this morning about a club, and has never mentioned it before. So go.” The grey-haired man made a shooing motion with his hand, and Tony and Ziva rose from their seats, Ziva grabbing the keys on her way out. The smirk that appeared on her face when the two entered the elevator showed that she clearly hadn’t missed the quiet groan Tony had given when he realised she was driving.

* * *

Andrew swore under his breath when another bright red “ _incorrect password_ ” flashed on the screen, and his fist slammed down on the keyboard in frustration.

“ _Mr Parkson!_ ”

The sharp call made him wince, and he glanced over to see the librarian looking over at him past some of the shelves.

“No slamming of keyboards, and _especially_ no swearing! Otherwise you’re out of here! Is that understood?”

Andrew sighed heavily, moving his hand away from the keyboard and resting it on the desk instead. “Yes, miss…” he grumbled under his breath.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Yes, miss!” Andrew called out more forcefully, ignoring the glares he received from other people in the library. He practically blanked out what the librarian said next as he scribbled out yet another guess on his long list of possible passwords his mother could have used. His teeth grit in frustration when the pencil lead snapped under his pressure, and he let out a heavy sigh through his nose before moving to look through his rucksack for a pencil sharpener.

“Andrew?”

The teen jumped and turned to see someone standing behind him, blonde hair tied back and brown eyes widened slightly. Andrew resisted the urge to panic and run right there and then, instead sliding his hands to cover his notebook.

“Alice…” he greeted with an attempted smile, shifting the notebooks slowly out of her line of sight. Unfortunately, this didn’t go unnoticed, and she frowned before glancing over at the computer screen. Her brows seemed to furrow even further.

“What are you doing?” she asked, moving to take a step towards him.

“Nothing,” he answered automatically, quickly switching off the computer screen as soon as he realised she was looking at it.

She scowled at him. “That doesn’t look like—”

“I said it’s nothing!” he snapped, glaring at her for a split second before faltering and glancing away when he saw her take a step back. “Alice, I…”

“There’s someone in the office waiting for you,” she answered, looking away from him for a moment before walking away. Before she left his sight, though, she turned to look at him. “I thought you would tell me when you’re coming to the library. We’re meant to be library buddies, Andrew. There’s something going on with you, and I don’t like it.”

Andrew just pursed his lips, leaving her to walk away before turning back to his computer. He sat there for a few moments, tapping his fingers on his notebook for a few moments before switching on the screen and moving to turn his station off, taking out the flash drive.

He might as well go to see what was happening, and there was no way he was leaving his stuff behind for other people to snoop on.

* * *

When he reached the reception area of the school, rucksack slung over his shoulder and hands in his pockets, he was surprised to see that Tony and Ziva were stood by the desk, waiting for him. And whilst he wasn’t surprised at all to see that Ziva didn’t appear so pleased, he was very surprised to see that Tony looked pretty irritated.

“So, how was football?” the female agent asked casually, immediately setting Andrew on edge. _Football?_

“Oh, um, it was good…” he lied, shrugging a little and shuffling his feet on the ground.

The two agents watched him for a moment, before Tony spoke up, “Funny, it doesn’t look as if you did any football. You don’t look tired or sweaty, Andrew.”

“I stayed on the sidelines and watched.”

“Then why change if you were only watching?”

“Well, it’s part of the rules,” Andrew continued to lie, shrugging a little but avoiding Tony and Ziva’s faces. “You have to wear uniform for training, even if you’re sitting out on the side, and all that.”

The two just watched him carefully for a few moments, before Ziva spoke up again.

“So I suppose sitting in the library is part of your training as well?”

Andrew tensed at that, his face paling a little. Inwardly, he cursed; then again, Alice had come looking for him. She’d probably _told_ them that he was in there. _Ugh, that snitch_.

At Andrew’s lack of an answer, Tony moved towards the teen, frowning at him. “Andrew, you lied to _us_. You lied to _federal agents_. What if something had happened to you? We wouldn’t have known where you were last!”

“And according to Gibbs, he didn’t even know that you were staying behind after school,” Ziva added with a frown. “He is the one who is protecting you right now – he is letting you go to school for your benefit, Andrew. And you are pushing your luck.”

Andrew pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes at his feet and tensing. “I didn’t ask him to,” he growled.

The agents frowned. “What?”

“I said I didn’t _ask him to_ ,” Andrew snapped loudly, gritting his teeth. “I _didn’t ask_ you guys to come and get me! I was fine here! I _am_ fine!” He turned and began to storm out of the school front doors.

“Hey!”

Tony reached out and grabbed the boy’s arm before he could get out of reach, though he wasn’t expecting Andrew to turn and attempt to hit his hand off, and he certainly didn’t expect the growled, “ _Piss off!_ ” that emerged from his mouth. Tony glared at him to conceal his shock, only holding onto the teen tighter.

“You are not going anywhere without us,” Ziva told Andrew sternly as she caught up with the two, glaring slightly at Andrew out of the corner of her eye. “And as of now, we are going straight back to NCIS. Without negotiation.”

Andrew just scowled as he was pulled over to the Charger. It looked as if he was losing his freedom…

That was when he realised something.

What if they kept an _eye_ on him?

 _Crap_.


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaah, sorry for taking so long with this chapter! I had a couple of other projects (as well as work) going on, so my writing was kind of put on hold longer than I expected. Otherwise this chapter may have been up weeks ago. But anyway, I have it here for you - I hope you enjoy it!

“Boss, I think I’ve found a list of the majority of the women that Petty Officer Parkson was in contact with when she was on duty.”

Gibbs paused on his brisk walk through the bullpen from the conference room, where he’d got the child psychologist all set up, and turned to McGee. He raised an eyebrow at him, as if waiting for him to explain further.

McGee cleared his throat a little, before he decided to continue. “I managed to cross-reference the Petty Officer’s location with the time frame—”

“And?” Gibbs asked impatiently, frowning at McGee. “Get to the point.”

“I’ve managed to narrow it down to a handful of women who could have been involved because of the amount of contact they had.”

Ten different faces appeared on the plasma, and Gibbs scanned each face momentarily before he turned back to McGee. “Any of them cross-reference with Petty Officer Miller’s list?” he asked.

McGee’s fingers typed at his keyboard for a few moments, and soon enough the faces on the board had reduced to six. “Those are the women that match the cross-reference, boss.” After a little more typing, and before Gibbs could even speak, McGee spoke again: “Trying to find their locations now, Boss.”

Gibbs nodded, and began to head towards the elevator to pick Jessica up from Abby’s lab, where she’d been dropped off after school, when he heard yelling. _Loud_ yelling. And the ones who caused the loud yelling walked straight into his bullpen.

In other words, Tony and Andrew.

“Don’t walk away from me! I’m talking to you!”

“I can walk _wherever I want_! I don’t have to listen to _you_!”

“Uh, sorry, but I think you _do_!”

“No, I _don’t_!” Andrew turned on Tony suddenly, glaring at him with a fierceness that the agent was pretty sure he’d only seen from Gibbs a few times. _Must be a Marine thing…_ “You are _not_ my father! You do _not_ know me! You have _no clue_ why I did what I did, and you’re just gonna… gonna…” Andrew’s fists clenched as he tried to come up with the words he wanted to say. “You’re gonna make _assumptions_ about me?!”

“Hey!” Gibbs barked, stepping into the argument before it could get any more heated. “What’s going on?” He looked to Ziva, hoping that she could explain it so that he could at least get it from a _balanced_ viewpoint, but Tony was the one who spoke.

“You were _right_ , Boss – we got to the kid at _just_ the right time,” he growled. “He wasn’t even playing _sports_ , like he said he was—”

“What, so I have to tell _you_ everything I’m doing?” Andrew interrupted with narrowed eyes. “I would’ve called you when I finished!”

“You could’ve been _playing truant_ for all we knew!” Tony bit back.

“I _don’t play truant_!”

“No, but you walk away from conversations before they’re done!”

“You freaking _man-handled me_!”

“You _what_?” Gibbs snapped, glaring at Tony.

“I didn’t _man-handle_ him!” Tony argued, though he sounded far less angry than he had been before and more like a whining child.

“Yes, you did!” Andrew turned to Gibbs. “He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me back! In the middle of a _school reception_! He practically _assaulted me_!”

Gibbs gritted his teeth, looking between the two males. Both looked angry – furious, even – but he could see the fear in Tony’s eyes as he realised exactly what he’d done wrong. Gibbs narrowed his eyes at the senior field agent, before letting out a sigh through his nose. _This was turning out far more tiring than he’d expected._ “Come with me,” he told Andrew, before walking briskly over to the elevator.

Andrew still looked angry, but he frowned slightly at Gibbs, hesitating for a few seconds before deciding to follow him into the metal box. As soon as they got in, Gibbs pressed a button for one of the lower floors, waiting for a few moments before slamming the _emergency stop_ button. The teen blinked.

“Are you allowed to do that?”

“You’re not settling in that well, are you?” Gibbs asked, changing the subject.

Andrew tensed slightly, looking up at Gibbs, before his shoulders slumped and he stared down at his feet. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, first of all, you _lied_ to me,” Gibbs pointed out, raising an eyebrow when the teen scowled more deeply and started kicking at the floor. The agent sighed. “Not telling me you had anything after school, and then staying behind anyway, is dangerous. You’re supposed to be under witness protection. I shouldn’t be putting _agents_ on you at all times. What if something had happened?”

Andrew just pursed his lips, letting out a sigh through his nose. He knew that Gibbs was right, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to admit it. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll tell you about whenever I stay behind at school.” His hand moved towards the emergency stop button.

“Did I say I was done?” Gibbs asked sharply, causing the teen to pull his hand back quickly. “Not only did you _lie_ to me, but you decided that the best course of action when you realised you’d been caught was _fighting with my agents_.”

“Tony started it!” Andrew argued. “He _grabbed me_!”

“Tony doesn’t grab people without good reason.”

Andrew just continued to scowl – though he was scowling at nothing in particular. He knew, deep down, that he shouldn’t have tried to walk off. He knew that he should’ve told Gibbs that he was staying behind after school, instead of lying and saying that he’d take the bus. He knew he was meant to do a lot of things, really. But he just… he didn’t want to do them. And now all of these people were mad at him because they were supposed to take care of him for a little while and he wasn’t letting them do their jobs.

“I’m sorry.”

The mumble was quiet, but Gibbs heard it, and his lips quirked up a tiny bit before the Senior Supervisory Agent reached over and pressed the emergency stop button again, starting up the elevator. After a pressing another button, the metal box slowly began to make its way back up to the office floor.

The two males stood there in silence for a few seconds, before Andrew spoke.

“So… what now?” he asked, looking over at Gibbs instead of straight ahead. When Gibbs didn’t respond, he elaborated. “I mean, I know I’m in trouble, but… but does that mean I’ll never be allowed out of your sight again?”

The teen could see the hesitation on Gibbs’ face – it was barely visible, but to the child of a marine it was clearly there – before he answered.

“I guess it depends on how you do today.”

Andrew frowned deeply. _How he did…?_ “What do you mean?”

“Child psychologist is here to see you.”

“Child psy—” Andrew stopped mid-word, his green eyes wide as the elevator doors opened. He simply followed Gibbs into the bullpen in what seemed like some sort of stunned silence, following his instructions to sit at his desk and get out something to do without arguing. Once Gibbs had gone, though, he snapped out of his stupor.

“You guys think I’m _psycho_?!”

* * *

 

Ziva sighed as she opened the Charger car door, stepping out onto the pavement. It was a little wet, considering it had just rained, but overall the weather wasn’t that bad. Just a bit cool, with some clouds still hanging overhead.

Within moments, she had joined Gibbs in front of the car, and the two of them headed into the building in front of them.

Once McGee had found the locations of each of the women, Gibbs had taken Ziva along with him to obtain alibis. They’d found two already, noted down their alibis, and relayed them back to Tony and McGee at headquarters so that they could follow them up and check their validities.

The only reason why Ziva was tagging along was because the suspects were all women, and it would most likely be easier for them to communicate with her. Of course, Gibbs was the boss, so he went along too. McGee stayed behind to process data, and Tony… well, Tony was ‘grounded’ for attempting to man-handle the kid and wasn’t allowed to leave his desk except to use the toilet or get water (that’s right – he wasn’t even allowed _coffee_ ).

As the two agents walked into the building, the faint scent of gunpowder and the sounds of muffled gunshots filled the air. They approached the reception desk, where a middle-aged man seemed to be cleaning out a gun. He looked up when they arrived.

“Hello, sir and madam.” He placed the dismantled weapon down on the desk and stood up straighter, plastering a business smile on his face. “What can I do for you today?”

Gibbs stepped forward. “NCIS. We’re looking for a Petty Officer Anderson,” he explained simply as he pulled out his badge, flashing it to the man.

The man frowned momentarily. “We don’t have a Petty Officer, here. Sorry.”

Ziva raised an eyebrow. “No Eleanor Anderson?” she questioned.

That seemed to click in the man’s mind. “Oh, y’mean Ellie?” He shot them both an apologetic smile. “Not used to her formal introduction, sorry. But yeah, she’s here?”

“Where?”

“Lane Seven. Right round the back, in the middle. Just follow the path round, and you’ll find it.”

The two agents nodded, sending him brief thank yous before heading out onto the shooting range.

* * *

 

“So, your name is Andrew, right?”

The teen just stared blankly at the blonde woman in front of him, slouching back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest.

He was with the psychologist in the conference room. Jessica, his younger sister, had gone first, and had come out as quiet as usual (psychologists didn’t work on the first try – they were a long a slow process, really), heading straight over to Gibbs’ desk and sticking her nose in a book. She hadn’t said a single word to Andrew about what happened in there, leaving him to wonder about everything until he actually went in. And once he got in, everything ended up going worse than he expected.

When she’d finally started asking questions (after talking a little bit about herself and trying to make herself seem friendly – a ploy that Andrew easily saw through, since he was fourteen and not _five_ ) he’d resorted to being closed-off and withdrawn, leaning back in the chair and watching her blankly. Part of him just wanted her to leave him alone. The other part of him wanted to see how long it took before she actually cracked.

But the woman was a whole lot more resilient than he originally thought if she was still in the room trying to ask him questions.

The two remained in silence for a little while, before she spoke again. “Look, I know you really don’t want to talk to me—”

“Gee, what makes you think that?” he mumbled sourly, ignoring the raised eyebrow she gave at his response.

“—but I’m here to help. I just want to help you with what’s happened and help you understand—”

“Oh, I understand,” Andrew butted in, before sitting up a little more fully. “Someone broke into our house. They killed my mom. When my dad came in, they killed him too so that he didn’t raise the alarm – stupid thing to do, really, when there are still two kids in the building. Between the two killings, they searched for something. I don’t know what, but they did. Whatever they searched for was important enough for them to kill my parents for it.”

Bloomfield listened to Andrew explain and watched his expressions for a few moments before speaking up. “Okay… but have you come to terms with it?”

He blinked. “Come to terms with what?”

“With your parents?”

He frowned. “They’re gone. I get it.”

“But do you truly understand?” At his blank expression, Penny pursed her lips for a good few seconds before she spoke again, this time cutting right to the chase. After all, this kid acted like he could handle it – she might as well give him what he was asking for. “They’re not coming back, Andrew. Do you understand that? That they’re gone, and you’ll never see them again?”

That struck a chord with him, and he tensed. But instead of bristling with anger, he felt his eyes begin to burn and his throat tighten.

When he didn’t reply, Penny spoke again. “Andrew?”

This time, he pushed himself away from the table and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

* * *

 

The two agents eventually managed to find the Petty Officer that they were looking for. Just as they reached her, she finished firing her rounds at the target ahead of her, a fair few of them hitting around the centre but one or two going a little wide. She seemed to hiss a curse under her breath as she removed her earmuffs before hearing someone clear their throat behind her.

She quickly swivelled and brought up her gun, before realising the two behind her hadn’t drawn any weapons and letting out a light, embarrassed laugh, clicking the safety back on and setting her gun down. “Sorry about that.”

Ziva quirked a small smile. “Not a problem, Petty Officer.”

The woman raised a single eyebrow at Ziva. “Petty Officer? No one calls me that out here.” She stood up a little straighter. “Who are you?”

Both agents pulled out their badges. “Special Agents Gibbs and David from NCIS,” Gibbs explained. “We’re here to talk about Petty Officer Grace Parkson.”

Anderson looked between the two with wide eyes for a couple of moments, before shrugging. “Alright, then.”

* * *

 

“Grace is… _dead_?”

The three were sat in a cafe just beside the reception, which was the area furthest away from the shooting range and, thus, the quietest. Petty Officer Anderson had ordered herself a coffee, and had offered to buy any beverages for the two agents, who declined the offer. They sat at a small booth in the corner of the restaurant, away from any eavesdropping ears.

Ziva nodded. “She was murdered a few days ago, at her home.”

Eleanor let out a breath of shock. “We didn’t always keep in contact, but I thought it was strange when she didn’t even call me. We usually pop out for coffee together every once in a while to catch up on family stuff.”

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. “Family stuff?”

“Yeah.” Eleanor shrugged a little. “I’m one of her distant cousins. Most of our family has passed away, either from illness or in action, and we’re both only children, so we keep in touch.”

Ziva shot Gibbs a look before turning back to the woman. “So you have no family living at the moment?”

“Maybe some distant relatives overseas,” she admitted, “but neither of us knew them. We never kept in touch.” Her eyes widened slightly. “Wait, if I’m the only family member in the U.S., does that mean I’ll have to take them in?”

“It’s possible, but that’s something to be taken up with their social worker.”

The social worker was a man named Jerome Blake. Tall, dark, and very friendly, he’d managed to kind of manoeuvre onto Andrew’s good side – in the sense that he could talk to the teen without him becoming hostile, something only Gibbs had really mastered so far. He visited the kids at Gibbs’ place just to make sure they were okay. Since they were witnesses to the murder and, thus, under witness protection, he couldn’t quite organise for them to be put into care yet, but at least he was preparing for it.

“Okay, so why are you here?” Eleanor asked, looking between the two.

Ziva was the one to speak up, having to clear her throat a little. “Petty Officer Anderson, where were you on the night of Petty Officer and Lieutenant Parkson’s deaths?”

The female opened her mouth to speak, before closing it. “I… I was out.”

“Where?”

“At a bar.”

“Can anyone vouch for that?” Gibbs asked.

Anderson shrugged, before shaking her head. “I don’t know. I… I went alone.” She bit her lip. “My boyfriend broke up with me, and I needed some time out and alone.”

Ziva pulled out a pad and a pen. “And where did you go?”

Once the Petty Officer had given the name of the bar and the address (from what she could remember), Gibbs and Ziva made their way out of the cafe and back to the car.

“To the bar?” Ziva asked with a raised eyebrow.

Gibbs just shrugged a little as he ignited the car and put it into drive. “Where else, Dah-veed?”


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Sorry it's been a while since I last posted - longer than I expected, really. I've been all sorts of busy and trying to get my motivation up so I can keep writing this. And it was all going great until I found out about the Season 13 finale. (Ugh, really Glasberg? Really?) But I got my muse back, so I managed to get this up for you guys!
> 
> I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Of all the things Tony expected to be doing that afternoon, sitting in the bullpen getting through paperwork because he was bored was not one of them. Granted, it meant that he wouldn't have much to do when the case was over, but still. He wanted to get in some action.

But the only reason why he wasn't getting some action was because he'd decided to grab a kid by the arm instead of talking to him. One _simple_ thing got him in so much trouble.

And not only that, but Ziva – who had witnessed the whole incident and hadn't even _tried_ to stop Tony – hadn't got in one ounce of trouble. Not one. _She_ was out of the office with Gibbs, currently out trying to get alibis for the case.

Meanwhile, he was stuck in the same building as the kid who got him in trouble in the first place. Go figure.

As he continued to scan through pieces of paperwork boredly, he absentmindedly noticed how McGee seemed to be typing away at his computer, checking up the alibis by phone almost at the same time. In fact, McGee was so busy trying to get work done that he didn't notice Andrew storm into the bullpen and head over to Gibbs' desk, grabbing his school bag at the same time as beginning to pack Jessica's stuff away for her.

"Come on, we're going home."

Tony frowned as he watched the teen for a few moments, before getting to his feet, ignoring the look that McGee shot him.

"Where are you going?" the Senior Field Agent demanded, folding his arms as he edged slowly towards the entrance to the bullpen, where he was pretty sure Andrew would try to get out.

Andrew didn't even bother answering or even looking up at Tony as he finished packing his sister's things into her school bag, zipping it up and helping her to put it on her back quickly.

"I _said_ , where are you going?" Tony repeated, narrowing his eyes at Andrew as the teen stood fully and began to head towards the bullpen entrance, presumably to the elevator.

"Home," Andrew answered simply as he tried to move past Tony to get out. When Tony moved to stand in his way, the teen visibly bristled, and Tony was momentarily scared that he would resort to using brute force to get past him.

"I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to go to Gibbs' place on your own, or without someone there to watch over the place. That's why it's called witness _protection_."

"That's not our home," Andrew snapped as he moved to try and get past Tony again, only to have him stand in his way. "We're going to our _real_ home."

"You mean the one boarded up with police tape because it's a crime scene?"

Andrew pursed his lips at that, refusing to respond, so Tony continued.

"I'm sorry, did you forget about all that. The fact that your home is now a crime scene because not one, but _two_ people were _murdered_ there?" He folded his arms as he looked down at the teen. "Do you not understand that we're trying to keep you _safe_?"

By now, the entire office had quietened so that they could hear the argument, various agents peeping over the dividers between their bullpens to catch a peek at what was going on. One or two had even got their phones out, deciding to video what was going on.

"I can do it on my own!" Andrew argued, letting go of his sister's hand and standing in front of her.

"You're a _child_! You don't _know_ how to do it on your own!"

"Yes I do! Just because I'm young doesn't mean I'm stupid!"

"No, it just means you're an easier target than your _parents were_!"

That made Andrew freeze, his body going stiff with both anger and shock. Part of him couldn't _believe_ that Tony had just said that. The rest of him knew that it would be _Tony_ who would say that kind of thing. Of _course_. The guy had something _stupid_ against him, and he didn't know what.

"Don't you _get_ that we're trying to help you and _protect_ you?!"

"We don't _want_ to be here! We don't _want_ your protection!"

"Oh really? Have you even _talked_ to your sister about this?" Tony asked, gesturing to the small girl behind the teen.

Andrew swivelled quickly, turning to his sister, and gave her a pair of raised eyebrows. "You actually want to stay with these guys?"

Jessica took a couple of sudden steps back, her eyes wide as she clutched to the straps of her rucksack. After all, she didn't exactly want to be pulled into this… but it was happening anyway. When Andrew registered the slight fear in her eyes, the confused expression cleared from his face. "…Jess…?" he asked softly.

She looked between Tony and Andrew for a few moments, eyes darting between the two males, before she hesitantly spoke. "I… I want to stay…" she murmured softly.

Andrew pursed his lips, his fists shaking as he turned and glared at Tony. "So you guys have gone and sucked _her_ into liking this place, huh?"

McGee finally took this as a chance to step in before it got any worse. "Andrew, we haven't done _anything_ other than try to take care of you here. We're not trying to hurt you—"

"Shut up," he grumbled quietly, reaching up and clutching the strap of his rucksack tightly. He was quiet for a good few moments before he pushed past Tony, ignoring the indignant yell of the agent. "I'll go on my own."

"Wait—Andrew!" McGee called out, standing from his seat. But the teen had already run off.

"He's making a break for it!" Tony called out, turning to McGee. "Get security to guard all the exits, McGee – I'll follow him down the stairwell."

"Got it!" McGee quickly went about getting in touch with security as Tony made his way to the stairwell.

* * *

The first thing that hit Ziva when she walked through the doors was that the place smelled _musty_.

Like, really _musty_. In the sense that there was probably mould growing on the walls somewhere in this building.

And yet, there still seemed to be people in the building, drinking and chatting with others. Most people seemed to be alone, of course, but there were some people sitting there in groups.

She and Gibbs approached the bar, where a bartender seemed to be cleaning some glasses. He looked up at them and smiled slightly, setting the glass he was holding down on the counter. "Afternoon, sir, ma'am." he nodded at Gibbs and Ziva respectively. "Anything I can get for you?"

"Security tapes," Ziva answered bluntly as she leaned on the counter. "Preferably of the past week or so."

The barman raised an eyebrow, before picking up the glass he'd put down and beginning to clean it again. "You got a warrant?" he asked.

"We're chasing up an alibi," Gibbs answered.

"Still need a warrant."

"Two naval officers were murdered."

That got the man to stop in his tracks, and he looked up at Ziva and Gibbs for a few moments before putting down the glass again. "Which cameras do you want footage from?" he asked.

Ziva smirked slightly. "Which cameras have you got?"

* * *

When Tony eventually found Andrew, he was pacing the landing between two floors, his backpack lying half open on the ground. From the state of the exercise books that littered the small area, it seemed to the agent that the teen had thrown a tantrum of some sort. At least, it did to him.

The Senior Field Agent slowly made his way down to the landing, trying not to alert the teen to his presence. Which worked, apparently, because the next thing he knew, Andrew had yelled some sort of mismatch of swears before leaning against a wall and sinking to the floor, sobbing. _That_ threw Tony off slightly.

The teen didn't look up or quieten his sobbing until he heard someone sink down beside him, and he felt his anger flare when he realised it was Tony.

"Come to hurt me again?" he sneered. "What are you going to do this time? You've man-handled me _and_ you've hurt me verbally. You going to throw me down the stairs or something?"

"I came to make sure you were alright," Tony stated.

"You came to make sure I was still in the building," Andrew retorted, a small triumphant smirk threatening to escape when he heard Tony blow a raspberry in defeat. He pushed down the urge to smile, instead pursing his lips.

After a few moments of silence, Tony spoke: "Psych didn't go so well, huh?"

"No shit," Andrew grumbled quietly. He hesitated for a few moments, before talking again, "I hated it."

Tony glanced over at the teen. "You mean you hated _her_?"

"No, I hated _it_." At the apparent confusion on Tony's face, the teen continued. "I hated the whole evaluation process. The whole _pretending to know how I feel_ thing. She wasn't that bad a person, I could tell, but it's like… the whole thing just doesn't take into account how I'm feeling, in a way."

"You just lost your parents, and you don't know whether you're ready to face it yet," Tony guessed. He smiled slightly at the look of surprise he received. "I was… I was the same way when my mom died. The only difference is, I didn't have anyone around to talk to or look out for me, no agents willing to give their home to me."

There was silence between the two for a few moments as Tony let that sink in. Andrew was the next to speak, though.

What happened?" Andrew asked quietly.

"My dad… he shipped me off to boarding school. I wasn't as close to him as I was to my mom, and him sending me away… well, that just pushed us further apart."

"At least you _had_ your dad. I have… no one."

"You have Gibbs," Tony corrected. "Who is pretty much like a dad. Like, the next best thing. Trust me. And you have whoever else in this building – more specifically, on this _team_ – that you can trust with whatever you want." He smiled over at the teen a little. "You're not alone. Not when you've got us around you a whole lot of the time. If you need to talk… we can talk."

Somehow, Andrew felt that Tony wasn't just offering the whole team, but himself in particular. And that made him smile a little and shrug. Just earlier on in the day, he'd been fighting with him about things, and now they were sort of getting along. He didn't know whether he should take advantage of it or not, but part of him really wanted to.

"Okay… okay, thanks…" he mumbled quietly, resting his chin on his knees, the small smile still on his face.

* * *

When Gibbs and Ziva finally got back to the bullpen – if only for Ziva to drop off some evidence for McGee to scan through so that he could check out Anderson's alibi – they were surprised to be greeted by quiet… from around the whole office. That, and the sight of Abby sitting cross-legged on the floor by Gibbs' desk, seemingly having a conversation with the younger redheaded Parkson. And, get this:

Jessica actually appeared _interested_ in what was being conversed.

Gibbs approached the two as Ziva moved to pass the evidence to McGee. "What are you two talking about?" he asked gently, half-sitting on his desk.

Jessica looked up at him sharply, her face closing off and her defences apparently sliding up.

It seemed as if Abby had a feeling that would happen, because she just attempted to shoot Gibbs a reassuring smile. "We were talking about _science_ ," the bubbly forensics analyst explained. "Apparently, little Jessie here is not only interested in reading all sorts of fantasy books, but she is also _really interested_ in the human body, and I was just explaining to her what DNA was."

Gibbs' eyebrows rose, and he looked over at the little girl. "Is that so?" He waited a few seconds for some kind of response – a shrug, a nod, anything – but when he realised he wasn't going to get one, he shot her a small smile. "I think that's pretty damn cool. I'm guessing you like spending time in Abby's lab, huh?"

Before he could even wait for an answer from her (even if she wasn't going to give one) McGee relayed the location of the next suspect to Gibbs and Ziva. The Senior Supervisory Agent pushed himself off the desk, nodding. "C'mon, Daveed."

Ziva nodded, and was about to follow Gibbs out of the bullpen when she spotted Tony and Andrew walking in, a rucksack slung over Andrew's shoulder. Gibbs and Ziva gave them looks of confusion as Tony moved to sit at his desk and Andrew headed straight over to Gibbs' desk to set his bag down.

"I went out for a walk," the teen lied plainly, ignoring the expressions on Gibbs' and Ziva's faces.

"I escorted him," Tony added as he sat down, moving to grab some more paperwork to complete. The bullpen was silent for a moment to let the lies sink in, before Gibbs just sighed and headed out of the bullpen.

"You're both terrible liars," he called back with a smirk as he and Ziva headed to the elevator.

* * *

The next officer for Gibbs and Ziva to meet went by the name of Macy Harper.

The two didn't know whether they were lucky or not when they found out that she was actually training on base when they went to search for her. But they concluded that it was pretty fortunate that she was only out for a jog when they caught up to her.

"Petty Officer Harper?" Gibbs called out through the now open window of the Charger, though the woman didn't realise her name was being called until she saw the head poking out of the window. She slowed down until she reached the vehicle, pulling her earphones out of her ears and pausing whatever track was playing on her iPod.

"Yes, sir?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, her hands on her hips as she panted.

Gibbs flashed his badge at her. "NCIS. We need to talk."

The Petty Officer hesitated for a few moments, seemingly debating something, before asking, "If we're going back to my place, can you give me a ride?"

Gibbs glanced over his shoulder at Ziva, who seemed to be smirking at him. His single raised eyebrow seemed to ask her for her opinion, but she just shrugged in response. He sighed and turned back to the woman.

"Hop in," he told her simply, revving the car as soon as she'd begun to climb into the back seats and speeding off as soon as she'd shut the door, not even giving her the chance to put on her seatbelt.

As soon as they'd arrived at Petty Officer Harper's place, the female in the back climbed out shakily, her eyes wide. Ziva looked over at Gibbs – this time, _she_ was the one raising the single eyebrow.

"Was that really necessary?"

Gibbs shrugged a little at that. "Just wanted to show her that we meant business," he quipped lightly as he got out of the car, following Harper into her home. Ziva merely snorted as she climbed out of the car, following Gibbs into the Petty Officer's home.

When they got inside, the Petty Officer had already put on a pair of sweats, and was heading into the kitchen to make some drinks. "Want anything?" she asked the two agents, as she passed them.

"We'll be fine, thanks," Gibbs spoke for both of them, sending a glance Ziva's way as the Petty Officer shrugged and continued her way into the kitchen to get herself a drink.

A few moments later, the Petty Officer returned with a glass of water, setting it down on the coffee table before plopping down into the armchair across from the two agents. "So… what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

Ziva pulled out a notebook. "Where were you on Tuesday night, at around 5pm?" she asked, pulling out a pen to take down notes.

It seemed as if Harper had to think a little bit about that one. "I was out with friends," she answered. "We went out for a meal. Why?"

"Can you tell us the name of the restaurant?"

"It's that place off Potomac Avenue."

Ziva nodded and noted this down, glancing to Gibbs to see whether he would ask their next set of interview questions.

"Petty Officer Harper, when was the last time you had contact with Petty Officer Parkson?" the grey-haired agent asked, earning a raised eyebrow from the woman in front of him.

"Last contact I had with Grace? Oh, that was back when we were on duty. We haven't really spoken since – we don't really communicate all that much." She frowned. "Why? Has something happened to her?"

"What was the last thing you remember about your last contact with the Petty Officer?" Gibbs pressed, ignoring her question.

"Uh… not much. I didn't really talk to her much on our last day of duty." Harper furrowed her eyebrows, thinking deeply. "I _do_ remember there being an argument on deck, though. Something going on between Parkson and Anderson."

"Parkson and Anderson?" Ziva asked with a frown, glancing over to Gibbs to make sure that she'd heard that right.

Gibbs, on the other hand, was frowning at the Petty Officer. "An argument?"

"Yeah. Something about… family, or something like that? It got pretty heated, and we had to separate them."

Gibbs was silent for a few moments as he took in that information, before he took Ziva's pad and ripped a sheet of paper out of it, handing it over to the Petty Officer. "We'll need the times you were at the restaurant, just to be sure."

* * *

"Anderson and Parkson in a fight?" Ziva asked as she climbed back into the car. "…That doesn't sound right."

Gibbs was scowling slightly as he sat down and started up the car, putting it into drive. "No, it doesn't," he muttered, before peeling off the driveway.


	12. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I have your next chapter here and ready for you to read! I hope you enjoy it!

"So, let me get this straight. You're giving us cable _and_ internet access for as long as we're here?"

McGee looked up at the teen from where he was trying to set up the cables and wireless router for the mentioned internet access and raised an eyebrow. "What, were you brought up without the internet?" he asked. "Because if you don't want it, I could just—"

"No, no! It's just…" Andrew frowned a little at McGee, looking more confused than upset or angry (an expression he commonly wore nowadays). "Why?"

And, to be fair, the teen had good reason to be suspicious. As soon as Gibbs and Ziva had returned from their last interview, they'd combed through hours and hours of security footage with McGee, and then looked through multiple government files (most of which Andrew had a feeling were hacked) to get information of a woman called Emily Anderson, and her connection to his mother. Tony was doing paperwork (still grounded), but every once in a while he'd shot the teen a reassuring half-smile of sorts.

And all that had gone on until Gibbs had ordered the agents to go home and get a good night's sleep so that they could get a fresh start on the case the next day.

Though, instead of going into the office the next day, Andrew and Jessica were stuck in protection at Gibbs' house whilst McGee watched over them.

At the same time as setting up cable TV, wireless internet, and computers in each of the rooms the kids were staying in.

Honestly, Andrew was just waiting for the agent in front of him to pull a plasma screen TV out of his back pocket and use it to replace the little old box called a _television_ (a poor excuse for one, really) that Gibbs had in his front room.

"We want to keep you here as long as the case is active," the agent explained, "and if that ends up being a while, we need to make sure you're comfortable enough."

"By letting me loose on the internet."

"We'll monitor what sites you visit, don't worry."

Andrew grimaced.

McGee chuckled slightly, though he'd gone a little pink in the face. "We just want to make sure you guys are okay here, and not bored and trying to escape." Before Andrew could protest about that, McGee quickly added, "Tony's idea, not mine."

Despite the fact that it was Tony who had thought up this whole thing, Andrew couldn't really stay mad at any of them. After all, they were trying to help him and his sister feel welcome. He couldn't really get mad at them for it. Really, he should just be grateful that they were trying at all.

His hands slipped into his pockets as he thought, his right hand wrapping around the flash drive. Maybe it was his turn to try and help _them_ too…

He was drawn out of his thoughts when McGee stood up, dusting his hands off. "There – that should be done." He smiled over at Andrew. "Good TV should last you a while, right?"

Andrew stared at the setup. Along with the cable, he was pretty sure the pile of DVDs were left there for himself and his sister to borrow and watch whenever they felt like it, and the slowly pulsing light of the wireless router gave him some strange sense of happiness that he hadn't felt in what was probably a long time.

Instead of thanking McGee, though, he looked over at the agent with a smirk.

"So… when are you going to add the gaming systems?"

* * *

The first thing that Gibbs did that morning was get Tony and Ziva out of the office to retrieve statements from the remaining two Petty Officers whilst he did some following up on what they'd been told by Harper the day before with Abby. Granted, Abby wasn't a specialist in getting information from other government agencies and looking through various classified files, but she at least found something.

Or rather, a lack of thereof.

"Gibbs! My silver-haired fox!" she greeted brightly, beckoning him over through the haze of loud music. A half-finished Caf-Pow! sat on the desk beside her, and on her screen was what seemed to be video footage.

Gibbs walked in with a raised eyebrow, carrying a Caf-Pow! and setting it a little way away from the one she already had. "What've you got, Abs?"

"Oooh, already bringing out the bargaining chip? Bold." She grinned at him before turning to the screen. "Well, it looks as if your contacts in the Navy pulled through, Gibbs, because we managed to get some footage from around the time that PO Harper was talking about. Or, at least, I _tried_ to." She clicked on the button, and the video began to play.

It seemed to be a regular day on the ship – all of the crew members milled about as if it was normal, nothing weird happened at all. That was, until a certain point.

Suddenly, the clip skipped, and the people on the video seemed to be a bit more agitated – crowding around an area, and not exactly aiming to go anywhere.

Gibbs frowned at that. "What happened?"

"That's exactly it, Gibbs – I don't _know_ what happened. Someone cut the feed at exactly that point so that we didn't see the fight." Abby turned to look Gibbs in the eye. "Something must've happened with the fight. Or maybe the fight was about something important – something we need in the case."

"Rewind back to the skipping point."

Abby did as she was told and rewound, pausing specifically at the point just after the footage skipped. Gibbs moved closer to the big screen on the wall, his eyes scanning over it before he pointed at something in particular.

Abby moved to stand next to Gibbs, squinting to get a better view of the spot he was pointing out, before her eyes widened. "Is that…?"

"Petty Officer Anderson walking off with a nosebleed and a bruising cheek? Yeah." Gibbs turned to head out of the lab, leaving the Caf-Pow! he bought behind on her desk. "Good work, Abs."

* * *

"So it's all connected?"

McGee looked over at Andrew from where he was just finishing up connecting what appeared to be one of his old desktops to the network he'd set up. He clicked a couple of times at the computer before swivelling the chair to face Andrew at the door. He smiled at the teen as he stood from the seat. "Yeah, all done."

Andrew grinned as he walked into his assigned room, looking around. The room hadn't changed much, really, but now he had his own desk. It was pretty bare with regards to the amount of papers he had on his desk, but now he had a whole desktop computer there to use.

By himself.

Slowly slipping a hand into his pocket, the teen wrapped his fingers around the flash drive that sat against his thigh.

Maybe he could _finally_ break into it…

"Do you want to start using it now?" McGee asked as he rose from the seat, seemingly trying not to spear awkward but failing. "I mean, I guess you want to personalise all of your stuff now, right? You've got a desk to yourself with a computer and everything… you probably even want to get started on homework or something…" At the look the teen sent him at the last remark, the agent decided to quickly backtrack. "I mean—well, not necessarily homework but… ugh, you want to do things on the computer, go ahead. I'm heading downstairs."

As the agent walked past, Andrew raised an eyebrow at McGee. "You're on duty today?"

McGee just shrugged at him when he reached the door. "The only way I could get all of your stuff done today. Boss'll be here around dinner to make sure you're both okay."

"Dinner?" Andrew frowned. "You mean, he'll be away practically all day?" Part of Andrew was concerned – he was never away from Gibbs that long unless he was at school, generally, and even then there was usually one agent outside his classes at all times – but another part of Andrew began cheering… because McGee was the one who _wasn't_ nosy.

Perfect.

"Well, he has a lead on the case," McGee explained, leaning against the doorframe, and was about to explain further when Andrew turned to head over to his computer. "But… I don't think you're quite as interested in that right now, so have fun with your computer." Before he walked off, McGee paused. "Sorry if there are still some modifications on the desktop. I tried to make the computer as normal as possible, but I made quite a few mods and I had to get rid of them all without destroying the hard drive."

"That's fine," Andrew answered as he sat down in the swivel chair, grinning slightly when it span. "As long as I can still use it, it's cool."

McGee nodded, watching Andrew for a few moments before moving off the doorpost. "I'm just gonna check up on your sister. She seemed really engrossed in the DS Lite I brought for her…"

"She likes Super Mario a lot, and any games based off books or intellectually challenging are things that she loves too," the teen explained. "If you got her any of those, then she'll be fine for a while."

McGee gave a small huff of laughter, but nodded, heading downstairs to where the redheaded girl was sat on the couch, playing games.

As soon as he was sure McGee was gone, the teen pulled the flash drive out of his pocket and plugged it into the desktop, waiting for the appropriate dialogue boxes to come up on the screen.

And when it came up less than five seconds later, Andrew grinned.

Yeah, this computer was _way_ faster than the library ones at school.

* * *

It was a good couple of hours before Andrew pulled himself away from the screen, and even then it wasn't by choice.

It was because he _had_ to.

After finally cracking the password to the flash drive, the teen had begun to scan through all of the documents, only to find himself confused about everything that was in the files. It was all coded, and he couldn't really read through anything.

If he could crack the codes, then he'd be able to find out exactly what his mother had been talking about.

"Cracking codes, cracking codes…" he muttered to himself as he twiddled the pencil between his fingers. Where should he start…?

"Hey, Andrew?"

The teen quickly turned his open page to something different, before swivelling his chair to face McGee at the door. He smiled slightly at McGee's raised eyebrow, before gesturing towards the notebook beside him with his pencil. "Homework," he stated simply, before sitting up more fully. "Anyway, what did you want?"

"Boss said we could go out for a meal, grab some pizza for dinner." He gave the teen a small grin. "You up for some pizza?"

Andrew seemed to consider this for a few moments, before nodding. "Yeah, sounds good. Uh…" He glanced back to the computer for a moment, before looking back to McGee. "Just let me…"

"Finish up your homework and turn it all off?" McGee asked with a raised eyebrow. At the teen's nod, McGee gave his own short nod. "Alright, I'll see you downstairs."

"I'll be quick!" the teen called out after McGee, and he waited until he was sure that he was gone before returning to his original screen. Within a few clicks, he'd closed all of his pages and disconnected his pen drive from the computer, quickly pulling it out. Just as he pushed his chair away from the table, he heard his name being called.

" _Andrew_!"

"I'm coming!" he called out, rushing over to his bedroom door. Just as he passed through the door, he realised he was forgetting something – a sweatshirt. The teen sighed before darting back into the room and grabbing his hooded sweatshirt, before darting out of the room and down the stairs.

And he didn't notice the silver flash drive that fell and landed just outside his bedroom door.

* * *

When Gibbs finally got back from the office that evening, he was exhausted. Honestly – the fearless Senior Supervisory Agent was actually exhausted. They were finally getting places with the case, but they were getting nowhere fast. Sure, they had _something_ … but it made no sense. There was a piece missing, and they had no clue where to find it.

And those other two Petty Officers hadn't helped at all. Their alibis checked out, and they were pretty much cleared. So the only ones possibly involved were Anderson and Harper, and how they were involved? Gibbs had no idea at all.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Gibbs decided it was probably best if he actually took a shower and freshened up. He knew that McGee was out grabbing pizza with the kids – something about getting them out of the house and giving them some fresh air so that they didn't turn into vampires or whatever the hell those kids watch nowadays. To be honest, he had no clue what that agent said half the time.

Once he reached the top of the stairs, he sighed, giving a little stretch, before beginning to head to the bathroom. He actually would've headed right in, if not for something small glinting in the dim lighting catching his eye.

He turned towards the light and realised it was something on the floor just outside the room he'd given to Andrew. He raised an eyebrow, moving closer to it before going down on one knee to pick it up.

He realised what it was before his mind even really registered it.

"A flash drive." _Must be Andrew's_.

He looked over it for a few moments, spinning it in his fingers, before a small engraving on it caught his eye.

_GP._

_GP?_

Gibbs was pretty sure those weren't Andrew's initials. Slowly but surely, the pieces began to click in his mind.

_GP. Grace Parkson._

The flash drive wasn't Andrew's. It was his mother's.

And it could be a piece of evidence in the investigation.

* * *

Andrew actually had a grin on his face as he walked through the front door, Jessica on his heels and McGee right behind her. Honestly, he hadn't realised how much he'd needed pizza, but he'd got it, and boy was it _good_. McGee sure knew some good pizza places in town.

Though, apparently, it was because Tony had ' _specific and refined tastes_ ' and wouldn't accept anything less than the best when it came to pizza day at work.

So it had taken _weeks_ for McGee to find the best place to grab a pizza. And in the end he only found it because Gibbs gave up on watching the guy get turned down week after week of buying the damn food and gave him the name of the place.

"Well, it's late, you two," McGee said as he shut the front door, locking it behind him (unlike Gibbs, he was taking certain precautions). "You two should really head up and get ready for bed. Don't want you feeling exhausted in the morning."

"Got it," Andrew said, smiling over his shoulder at McGee as he began to usher his younger sister up the stairs. The little girl moved along quietly, smiling slightly as they reached the top of the stairs and moved to their respective bedrooms. She whispered a barely audible, "Good night, Andy," before heading into her room and shutting the door behind her.

Andrew sighed. "Don't forget to brush your teeth, Jess!" he called out, not really expecting an answer from his now unnaturally quiet sister, before turning towards the door to his bedroom and pushing it open.

He jumped a mile high when he flicked the on switch and realised someone was sitting on his bed.

"What the— _hey_!" His expression flipped from shocked and surprised to angry in a heartbeat, and he glared at Gibbs. "This is _my_ room! What are you even _doing_ in here?!" he demanded. When he received no answer, his fists clenched and his level of anger increased. "This is _my_ room, Gibbs! You _said_ so! That means _my_ rules!" When he, again, received no answer, he went on. "And my rules state that no one is allowed in my room without _my_ permission!"

"You forfeited the right to having your own rules when you broke the law."

That sentence made Andrew freeze. _Broke the…?_

And that was when he saw it.

The small, silver object glistening in Gibbs' hands, reflecting the lamp light. He didn't need to look closely to know that it had the initials _GP_ engraved onto one side.

That was _his_ flash drive.


	13. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have the next chapter here for you guys. I hope you guys enjoy it!

 

" _You forfeited the right to having your own rules when you broke the law."_

_That sentence made Andrew freeze._ _**Broke the…?** _

_And that was when he saw it._

_The small, silver object glistening in Gibbs' hands, reflecting the lamp light. He didn't need to look closely to know that it had the initials_ _**GP** _ _engraved onto one side._

_That was_ _**his** _ _flash drive._

* * *

Andrew was silent for a good few moments, his mind whirring. He didn't know what to do – whether to get angry about this whole situation (Gibbs had _taken_ something that _was not his_ ), or to try and explain himself to try and get himself _out_ of the situation (to be fair, the flash drive _technically_ wasn't his, and he'd been trying to hack into it for a while… only recently succeeding). And that time he stood there was precious time Gibbs used to realise that the boy was probably thinking of a lie to feed him.

So he decided to go for the forward approach.

"You decided to withhold evidence."

That sparked Andrew's anger quickly enough. "I _did_ not withhold evidence!" he argued defensively, only to be cut off by Gibbs.

"Was this at your house at the time of the murder?" he asked calmly, looking up at Andrew as he held up the flash drive for the teen to see.

Andrew hesitated. "Well… _yes_ , but…"

"Is this your mother's?"

"…Again, _yeah_ , but…"

"Then this is evidence to the investigation." The agent moved to stand, but was stopped when Andrew took an angry step towards him.

The teen's fists were clenched tightly at his side, his green eyes almost dark with anger. "Hold it right there! You can't just walk _into_ my room, take my _stuff_ , and then say that _I_ was _withholding evidence_ when you _invaded my privacy_!" he argued furiously, though he wasn't prepared to be met with an ice cold stare. An ice cold stare that almost made him back down. _Almost_.

"You _withheld evidence_ , Andrew!" Gibbs suddenly snapped, rising from his seat on the bed to face the teen full-on. "You withheld evidence, and not only does that make you a _criminal_ for interfering with an investigation and a possible _assistant_ to the murderer, but it also makes you a _suspect_ again!" He walked past the teen, heading towards the bedroom door, and paused just before he could leave.

"And this wasn't _in_ your room, Andrew. This was on the floor _outside_ your room." Gibbs slipped the drive into his pocket, sending Andrew one last harsh glare. "I'll take you in in the morning."

The bedroom door shut behind Gibbs quietly, a vast contrast to the tense and angry atmosphere in the room – an atmosphere that certainly hadn't left as soon as Gibbs had gone.

An atmosphere that had quickly led to the trashing of Andrew's room out of pure anger.

* * *

Saturdays were usually quiet days. The Parkson kids were used to the idea of staying inside all day to either do homework or study, with the option of going to a friend's place if they had asked or it had been agreed on. As the youngest of the Parksons, Jessica was very used to this routine, and not once had it been changed – not when her mother was about, not when it was only dad at home, and not even when they had a nanny because both their parents had been shipped out on duty. Jessica liked this routine.

So she was pretty much thrown off-balance when Abby arrived at the Gibbs residence to announce that she and the young redhead were going to hang out at the mall.

After all, Jessica was only eight. She wasn't into all that fashion stuff yet.

Still, despite her discomfort, the young girl understood why she was being taken out of the house. Just because she was eight didn't mean that she was stupid. She was observant, and intelligent for her age. Just because she hadn't been told that there was something going on with her brother and Gibbs didn't mean that she hadn't sensed the very tense atmosphere when she arrived downstairs for breakfast that morning. The looks that her brother sent Gibbs kind of terrified her, actually.

So she didn't even protest once when Abby told her they were going.

Following the dark haired woman out of the door, the young girl barely even glanced back at her brother and Gibbs, who still weren't talking. She quietly made her way over to the car, letting Abby open the door for her and climbing into the passenger seat. She didn't speak until Abby had closed her own door and was about to start the car up.

"I don't want to go to the mall."

Abby nearly had to do a double-take when the little girl spoke. Despite the fact that she and Jessica had conversed a fair few times before, her small and slightly scratchy voice still surprised her. When it registered in Abby's mind that the little redhead had actually said something, she smiled at her and revved the car engine.

"But the mall is fun!" Abby encouraged brightly. "We can buy clothes and eat junk food and look at all sorts of weird and scary things to buy!"

"I'm not into clothes," Jessica argued quietly as Abby began to drive off. "We ate pizza last night, and I don't really like weird and scary things..."

Abby pursed her lips as she continued to drive, trying to think of a way to encourage the girl that going to the mall was a good idea. After all, Jessica was young, and Abby understood why she wasn't into all of that stuff yet. But Jessica also wasn't Abby, and so she wasn't interested in all that Abby had been interested in as a kid. Jessica was like, a completely new specimen; she was a new piece of evidence that she'd never seen before and...

Wait a second...

"How about a book store?" Abby asked, sparing a glance over at the young girl before focusing on the road ahead of her. "We could head to a book store. I know they have a whole load of forensics books and stuff that you might like. Loads of science-y things about the body. Would you like that?"

The little girl's eyes lit up, and she nodded – albeit shyly, but it was a start.

"Then afterwards, I'll see if I can take you to the Museum of Natural History?"

"That sounds fun."

"We'll make it awesome!" When the little girl sent her a grin, Abby gave a whoop of triumph on the inside.

Finally, she was getting somewhere with this kid.

* * *

As soon as that door had shut behind Abby and Jessica, Gibbs attempted to break the silence.

"We're heading to the office in ten."

Andrew just scowled at him as he watched him walk away, coffee in hand, before dragging himself out of his seat. He knew for a fact that Gibbs would yell at him or something if he stayed in his seat and wasn't waiting for him by the car in ten minutes – his dad had done the same thing when he was younger. He could just kind of... sense that aura around the agent.

So whilst Gibbs was doing... whatever, Andrew decided to use this time to try and get his facts straight, before he got chewed out for lying and withholding evidence in interrogation. Different ideas on what he could say flitted around his mind, but all those ideas came to a halt when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

His cell phone.

He still had it?

Looking around to see if Gibbs was nearby, and finding that the coast was clear, Andrew pulled his phone out to see what message he'd received. He was surprised to find that it was from Alice, considering the two had been a little out of touch with their friendship recently.

_Text: Hey, Andy, are we allowed to meet up?_

He smiled a little. Alice was always the type to try and make amends before anything went too far. He supposed he should apologise too for trying to hide things from her, but... was now really the time? He was in deep trouble, and if Gibbs caught him talking about it over the phone...

_Reply: Hey, Alice. Sorry, I can't today... I'm in trouble._

Well, he supposed he'd already gone and said it.

Before Alice could reply to the text he sent, he sent her another.

_Text: Hey, could you ask your mom if she knew anything about a flash drive my mom had?_

_Reply: Sure, Andy, but what for?_

_Text: I'll tell you later. I promise._

He quickly slipped his phone into his pocket as he heard Gibbs approaching from wherever he was in the house, grabbing his keys before heading towards the front door.

"Come on, Andrew."

* * *

Andrew knew that, out of all the suspects Tony and Ziva must have looked at, he was definitely the one that they didn't expect to be in interrogation. After all, he'd already been brought in right at the beginning of the case, and then he was cleared as a witness, so why would he be a suspect again?

Because of that damped flash drive, that's what.

Honestly, the only reason why he hadn't turned it in was because he was curious about it. What if it was harmless, and there was nothing on it? Granted, he knew that there was _something_ important on it, because there was stuff in code on there, but what if he hadn't known? What if there _hadn't_ been anything harmful on there? Then it would've been kind of unfair to arrest him for it, right?

Funnily enough, Tony didn't agree with that reasoning.

"Look, Andrew," he started responding with a sigh, "you _know_ you did something wrong. You withheld something that had been at the crime scene, something that could've helped us to solve this case. You could've turned it over, but you didn't."

"But I was going to!" Andrew protested. "I was looking to see if what was on the flash drive would be important to you! I didn't want you to waste your time!"

"But you still should've turned it over."

"And what if the drive had been blank? What then? You would've been mad at me for it!"

Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair, taking a few moments ts to choose his words carefully before speaking. "Look, kid, I understand what you did. Believe me, I really do. We've had so many cases with dead ends and I appreciate what you were trying to do for us. But the fact of the matter is that you withheld evidence from us, whether it's useful or not, and that can be classed as a criminal offence. You interfered with a federal investigation, Andrew, and you _should_ really go to juvy for that."

Andrew was about to protest when Tony's words sunk in. ' _Should_ '? Why _should_? "Wait so I'm not going to prison?" he asked, eyes wide.

Tony shrugged with a tiny smile on his face. "Miss Psychologist stood up for you. Says it's your way of grieving, holding onto things that are your mom's. Not _completely_ believable, but Gibbs took it. You're remaining in custody."

The teen gave a sigh of relief, though not after wondering momentarily why on earth that psychologist helped him. After all, last time they met he'd stormed out angrily. He didn't think things between them were that great.

"Director doesn't want you in protective custody like before, though. He wants more eyes on you so that if you do some sort of criminal stunt or something stupid the psychologist will excuse as 'grieving', there'll be someone there to catch you."

" _What_? I can't even go out?"

"Not without an escort."

Andrew sighed. He supposed the deal was pretty reasonable, considering it could be worse. A lot worse. "Doesn't that mean the agents will be standing _in_ my class instead of outside?"

Tony frowned at him. "Why would an agent stand outside instead of inside?"

"Beats me."

* * *

Gibbs knew that during a high point in a case he should be sleeping at night, but he just really felt the need to work. Keep his hands moving. After all, Andrew had refused to provide the password (he said that he couldn't remember it, but Gibbs thought otherwise) and now McGee and Abby had to work through the night to cracking the codes and figuring out what was in the files.

Of course, Andrew didn't know all this when he got out of bed late at night; he only knew that Gibbs was always up for late night talks, since that was the main reason why Andrew enjoyed going to the basement. And apparently, the agent stood guarding his bedroom door didn't exactly know about Gibbs' whereabouts either, which resulted in Andrew crashing into the man as soon as he tried to walk out of the room.

"I'm going to get a drink," the teen grumbled, frowning when the man moved to stand in his path. "What?"

"A drink? Really?"

"I get thirsty at night," he protested, waiting for a few seconds to see if that would actually work before sighing. "I'm going to talk to Gibbs."

"He's in his room."

"Not he's not. He rarely ever sleeps in his room."

The quick response made the agent raise his eyebrows at the teen, and he folded his arms as if to challenge the teen on his knowledge.

Andrew sighed as he passed the man. "He's in the basement, dumbass."

"You know, I could get you arrested for insulting an agent."

"And I could get you arrested for assaulting a minor, but I'm not going to do that." As he descended the stairs, a smirk grew on Andrew's face. "Or should I?"

Upon reaching the basement, Andrew wasn't surprised to find that Gibbs was already down there, working on the boat. After all, that was pretty much the only reason why he was down there – or, at least it was to Andrew's knowledge. The teen made his way down the staircase, not even surprised when Gibbs glanced up in his direction momentarily.

"He's fine, Blakely," the more experienced agent said gruffly, and Andrew was glad to hear the door close quietly as he reached the bottom step. He hesitated there for a few moments, before deciding it was safe to take a step closer to the boat.

"What are you doing up this late?" Gibbs asked as he continued working on the boat, sanding down parts he felt were rough as he made his way around it. The skeleton was almost done now – Andrew was pretty sure he'd start adding on the outer parts soon enough.

"Couldn't stay asleep," the teen answered lately. At the look Gibbs gave him, he decided to backtrack and rephrase what he said. "I mean, I wanted to sleep, but I just... I have too much on my mind and..." He sighed. "I wanted to apologise. For the whole... flash drive thing. I know I shouldn't have kept it, but—"

"Quit talking about it, then," Gibbs responded simply, and the two dwindled into a seemingly comfortable silence before the older man turned to the teen, holding out the sander. "I need an extra set of hands to get this done tonight."

"What, you don't think you'll work fast enough on this?" Andrew asked as he took the tool and moved towards the boat, feeling it over just as he'd been shown for any rough patches.

"Nah," Gibbs responded as he moved to lean against the bench, a mug of what seemed to be coffee in his hands. "Need a break. Thought I'd get you to do the job instead."

Andrew looked over at Gibbs with slightly furrowed eyebrows, before noticing the slight smirk as he took a sip of his drink and grinning himself.

He supposed they were comfortable with each other again.


	14. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I have your next chapter here for you! I guess work might've been holding me back from writing this and updating it sooner, but I finally have it.
> 
> Enjoy!

Andrew sighed as he pulled open his locker door, his eyes scanning the contents of his locker as he thought about what he would need. He still had no complete idea what he was going to write about, but a niggling thought was forming at the back of his mind. A niggling thought he was pretty sure he didn't mind; he probably even liked the idea.

Before he could even try to comprehend what that idea was, though, he realised someone was standing behind him.

Someone slightly shorter than him, blonde, and looking very confused.

He grinned at her. "Alice, hey!"

"What's with the creep walking with you?" she asked bluntly, her head nodding towards the man standing only a couple of lockers away from them, scanning the school crowds.

Andrew bit his lip, noticing how the guy looked very suspicious, before turning back to Alice. "Protective custody," the male answered, deciding not to go into detail about how he'd been in trouble and his tail was now his punishment. "Apparently he's gotta stay."

"Oh that sucks," she said empathetically, though Andrew had a feeling she was just being dramatic and didn't really mean it.

"Thank you, but I didn't ask for your false pity."

"It's not false."

"I know it's false."

"But it isn't false."

Andrew smirked at her as he moved to shut his locker door. "It's totally false," he responded yet again, before frowning when she moved to stand between him and his still open locker. "Hey, what gives?"

"I asked about the thing you told me to ask about," she told him quietly, frowning when his eyes widened. "What?"

"Not here," he hissed lowly, glancing towards the agent before focusing back on Alice. "Definitely not here."

"What? Why?"

"Because reasons."

"Andy, that's not—"

"Meet me at the bench after school," he whispered hurriedly. "Promise me you'll do that. You'll do it, right?"

Alice pursed her lips. She knew that the bench was always where she and Andrew had their private conversations, where they knew they could talk without being disturbed or overheard, but right now… "Is it safe with that guy following you?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow.

Andrew's lips quirked up into a small smirk. "I'll shake him, trust me. Don't worry about me. Just meet me at the bench, okay?"

"Okay, okay, I'll meet you there," she finally said with a sigh as the bell for home room rang. "But you better not be late to the benches. I'm on a tight schedule, and I cannot be late home today, okay? I've got places to be and people to see…"

"Alright, alright, I get you," he said, moving both of them away from his locker so that he could shut it. "I'll be there. Trust me."

Alice gave him a sceptical look for a few moments, before sighing again and moving to head to her next class. "You'd better, Andy," she muttered as she headed off.

Andrew watched her head off for a few moments before turning to head to his class, nearly walking into the agent who was meant to be watching him. He scowled a little at the man, before moving past him to head to his class.

Couldn't that guy just watch where he was going? Otherwise Andrew would end up injured because of _him_ , and not some person trying to get… whatever they wanted from him.

Whatever that would be. After all, he didn't have the flash drive anymore. Whatever happened next would _not_ be his fault.

* * *

_Ding!_

Abby didn't even look over towards the entrance for her lab as she exclaimed, "Gibbs!" excitedly, her eyes focused on the computer screen in front of her. Beside her, McGee was tapping away at his own keyboard, eyes focused on the screen in front of him.

The two were attempting to crack the codes for the documents on the flash drive that Andrew had presented them with, but so far they hadn't had much luck with it at all. They still had no idea what type of code it was, let alone what it coded for, and Andrew wasn't exactly helping by claiming he knew nothing about what was on the flash drive. In McGee's opinion, the teen knew more than he let on, but Tony didn't seem to agree.

"You two got anything yet?" Gibbs asked as he walked in, heading straight for the pair.

"No," McGee answered sullenly. "This code… it's almost impossible to hack, boss. We can't work it out. Not without the original writer of the code, or with some sort of clue…"

Abby visibly perked up at that, and she turned to head towards some of the evidence that was still left in the lab. "Brilliant, McGee! You're brilliant!"

McGee paused, frowning for a moment before his eyes widened. "Of course! Evidence from the crime scene! We can use that to…"

Gibbs turned away as they continued to talk, not entirely all the bothered about listening to things he wouldn't really understand. Just as he reached the elevator, the doors opened, revealing Ziva. She smiled slightly at Gibbs, before speaking.

"Is it alright if we speak, Gibbs? We may have a bit of an issue…"

Gibbs' eyebrows rose as he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the bullpen floor. After a couple of seconds, he flipped the emergency switch and turned to Ziva. "What's going on?"

"Jessica is here."

The blank expression on Gibbs' face showed just how urgent he thought that piece of information was. It was also a cue for Ziva to elaborate.

"She was sent home from school today," the Israeli explained further. "According to her teachers, she was not cooperating in classes. She was very withdrawn and anyone she spoke to, she argued with. So the agent in charge of protecting her brought her back to the office to take care of her for the day."

The Senior Supervisory Agent sighed through his nose, pursing his lips as he stared at the elevator doors, before flipping the emergency stop switch and letting the metal box return on its journey to its intended floor. Once they reached the floor, Ziva led Gibbs to where Jessica was sitting – at her desk, seemingly drawing. The two hesitated at the entrance to the bullpen for a moment, before Gibbs moved to kneel beside the little girl, watching her draw.

"That's a nice drawing you've done," he told her softly, not even surprised that she didn't flinch.

Though, he _was_ surprised when she responded.

"It's a picture of my favourite characters," she told him quietly, not looking up from the sheet in front of her. As she reached for a blue colouring pencil, she continued to speak. "I like mythology. It's cool. Percy Jackson is my favourite."

Gibbs glanced up at Ziva for a moment, who proceeded to explain. "It is a book series for children. McGee says it is all about mythical beings and monsters put into a modern world context."

The grey-haired male nodded before turning back to Jessica. "That sounds really interesting, Jessica."

The girl looked over at him, blinking for a few moments before letting her lips quirk up into a small smile. That smile was gone as soon as it appeared, though, and Gibbs was left wondering whether she'd really smiled.

He continued to watch her draw for a few moments before deciding to speak to her again. "So… I hear school didn't really go that well today." When the little girl didn't respond, he decided to talk a little more. "School isn't going that great, huh?" When she nodded in response, Gibbs smiled slightly. "Want to talk to me about it?"

The little girl seemed to pause for a few moments as she thought about it, before shaking her head.

"…Want to talk to Abby about it?" Gibbs knew how close the little red headed girl was to the Forensics expert, so maybe Abby could figure out what was going on.

The little girl hesitated again, before nodding.

"How about we head down to her lab, then?"

"Now?" It was the first word Jessica had really said to him all day, but he could hear the hope in her voice. At his nod of affirmation, the little girl began to pack up the little she'd got out of her bag, and soon enough Gibbs was taking her down to Forensics.

McGee was the one who turned when the elevator dinged its arrival, and a small smile appeared on his face. "Abs, I think we have a visitor."

Abby turned from where she had been intently focused on the computer to see Gibbs and Jessica standing at the entrance to the lab, and she squealed. "Jessie!"

Gibbs looked down at the little girl with a single raised eyebrow, eliciting a smile from her, before allowing the Forensics expert to take the little girl and turning to leave.

McGee raised an eyebrow at the man's briskness. "Got somewhere to be, boss?" he called out.

"Got to find some leads on that drive if you're gonna crack those files!"

* * *

Of all the things Alice knew about Andrew, if there was one thing he always reminded her of it was the fact that he liked to spook people.

And that fact hadn't changed, even though he was a whole lot more closed off and touchy than he was before.

So she definitely screamed and jumped a mile high when she heard a lowly whisper and felt a tickle against her ear.

The bright red blush on her face was nothing compared to the anger that appeared on her face when she realised it had, in fact, been Andrew who had done that just to terrify her… and only because she had her earphones in and her iPod on low volume.

"You _idiot_!" she screeched at him, her anger only increasing when she realised he was laughing at her. A lot. "You could've given me a heart attack and killed me!"

He just stood there, a huge grin still on his face. " _Please_ , there's no way I would've killed you. You're not at the age where you're prone to heart attacks yet."

"You still could have sent me into shock."

"If I wanted to kill you I would've had a gun."

"You pulled out a NERF gun on me once. That was kind of scary."

"One, that was in my yard and not in public; and two, you even knew it wasn't loaded. How were you scared?"

"Did I say I was scared that time?" Alice teased. "I only said you pulled out a NERF gun on me. Which was pretty dumb in the end because I still took you down."

"Because you had a height advantage. I was short for my age."

"You use that excuse every time."

The two laughed for a few moments, before sinking into a comfortable silence as Andrew joined Alice on the bench, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees. For some reason, he couldn't stop his leg from bouncing. Whether it was because he was nervous about what he came here to talk to Alice about or not, he just didn't know.

"So…" he started off slowly, glancing over at Alice as some sort of signal.

Which she caught pretty quickly, because a mere moment later she was pulling something out of her pocket.

A notepad.

A sticky notepad, to be exact.

Andrew frowned slightly when he saw the item in Alice's hand. "Uh… why have you got that?" he asked, sitting up a little more fully. That was when he noticed there was writing on it. Were you taking notes?"

Alice rolled her eyes at him, a small smile appearing on her face, but that smile quickly disappeared when she began to explain. "It's the stuff I found on your mom. I went through all of my mom's stuff to see what she had, and I found the information buried in a locked folder on her computer, practically untouched since the day she created it." She held up the pad so that it was facing Andrew. "Apparently your mom found something and did a little digging, and it was getting her into some trouble. Apparently my mom was told to keep this information safe and do whatever she felt was right if something was to happen to her."

Andrew's brow furrowed further. "Then why hasn't she done anything about it yet?" he asked, sounding agitated. "My mom's dead! She should be going through this and sending it to the authorities or police or… someone!" He snatched the object out of Alice's hand and began to scan his eyes over the first page.

Alice shrugged. "Maybe she forgot? Who knows. All I know is that there was meant to be a video in that folder, but it's been removed. Like, deleted."

"Deleted?" Andrew looked up at Alice sharply. "You mean, your mom deleted something that could've possibly been evidence?"

"It wasn't my mom," Alice snapped sharply, before regaining her composure. "If your mom trusted mine with this information in the first place, then she was either told to delete it or someone got into her computer and deleted it."

"But who?"

"That's the problem. I have no idea. We held some sort of New Year's party this year, and then there was the whole Valentine's dinner that my parents hosted too. Loads of people were at both of these events. It could've been anyone." Before Andrew could demand any more answers, she continued. "What you're reading now, though, is notes I took from a transcript my mom made before the video was deleted. I get the vibe it was some sort of 'this information is sacred and secret do not pass on what I am about to tell you' video. Especially since your mom had a knack for being dramatic when she's anxious."

The word 'had' made Andrew tense, though he forced down the tendrils of anger in favour of asking Alice the burning question. "So what information was my mom passing on to yours?"

"It's on the last sticky note."

He flicked to the back, his eyes scanning over the information written there. It was clear as day, and yet he couldn't wrap his mind around it. "It's…"

* * *

" _Drugs_?"

Both McGee and Abby looked over to Gibbs with triumphant smiles on their faces, nodding enthusiastically.

"Totally drugs, Gibbs. There's no other explanation offered here. It all talks about drug trafficking and sale."

Gibbs' face hardened at that. Whenever there was something to do with drugs, the case was always deeper than it seemed. "You cracked any more of the code?"

"Nope," Abby responded, though she had a smile on her face. "We've only just started, really. We haven't had enough time to crack the rest of the code."

"If it wasn't for Jessica, we'd still be trying to crack it," McGee said, looking over at the little girl with a smile.

The little girl blushed lightly as she sat on her stool, swinging her legs a little.

At Gibbs' raised eyebrow, Abby explained.

"She says her mom taught her the code when she was little. It's not a common code – it's one only really known by certain members of the family. I'm guessing Jessie here was the one smart enough to pick it up quickly from her mom, so she was taught it in case anything went wrong."

"Plus the Petty Officer was keeping the flash drive and how to read it separate by doing that," McGee continued. "It's a good way to make sure only the people she wants can find out what's on the drive. Both the kids have to give up their information for it to work."

Gibbs nodded, smiling at Jessica and ruffling her hair before placing a Caf-Pow! next to Abby and a cup of coffee next to McGee. "Good work you three."

The Senior Supervisory Agent didn't miss the way Jessica's smile widened into a grin as he left the room. Hey, maybe the kid was warming up to him after all.

* * *

Andrew just stared down at the pad in his hand, his eyes reading over the words repeatedly.

_Drugs_. His mom had got involved with some kind of drug trade on the ship, had been found out, and then killed. Had she been one of the good guys, or the sellers? No, she wouldn't have been killed if she was a seller. If she was, then she'd have been dishonourable discharged. So she must've found out, and been killed for it.

Great.

"So this flash drive… is the reason my mom was killed?" he whispered quietly, more to himself than anyone else. Maybe he had got himself in deeper than he'd originally thought.

Alice bit her lip before nodding. "Yeah… yeah it is." At the devastated look on his face, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm… I'm so sorry, Andy…"

He just pursed his lips. All this time, his mother had been doing something good, and she'd died for it. And part of him, the selfish part of him, wished she hadn't done that. Sure, she was probably trying to save someone, but he just wished that she'd taken her own life into account – that she'd taken him and Jessie into account too.

The two were so engrossed in the small notepad and what was written on it that they didn't realise there was someone approaching until it was too late.

He barely had time to cry out and react to Alice's screams before being knocked out cold.


	15. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's the next chapter for you guys! I hope you all enjoy it!

" _So this flash drive… is the reason my mom was killed?" he whispered quietly, more to himself than anyone else. Maybe he had got himself in deeper than he'd originally thought._

_Alice bit her lip before nodding. "Yeah… yeah it is." At the devastated look on his face, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm… I'm so sorry, Andy…"_

_He just pursed his lips. All this time, his mother had been doing something good, and she'd died for it. And part of him, the selfish part of him, wished she hadn't done that. Sure, she was probably trying to save someone, but he just wished that she'd taken her own life into account – that she'd taken him and Jessie into account too._

_The two were so engrossed in the small notepad and what was written on it that they didn't realise there was someone approaching until it was too late._

_He barely had time to cry out and react to Alice's screams before being knocked out cold._

* * *

It was a good couple of hours before anyone realised that something was wrong; that something being the fact that Andrew had not yet arrived at the office from school. The agent assigned to bring him was nowhere to be found, and hadn't called to report anything.

Needless to say, when Gibbs realised his agents hadn't exactly noticed it, he was _furious_.

"Where is Andrew?!" His voice boomed through the office, causing Tony and Ziva to both sit at their desks, frozen in fear. Neither agent looked up from their computer when Gibbs stormed into the bullpen.

" _DiNozzo!_ "

"Haven't heard anything from Agent Brown, boss," he answered quickly.

"Neither have I, Gibbs," Ziva tagged onto the end, trying to make herself seem innocent quickly.

"Then _call him_ ," Gibbs snapped, glaring at the two agents icily. Within moments the two agents were trying to dial the agent's number and the number of the school, trying to find out about Andrew and Agent Brown.

After a few minutes of impatient waiting, Gibbs finally got an answer from Ziva.

"I have just spoken to the school, Gibbs," she told him. "Andrew and Agent Brown are not on the campus. One teacher reported seeing Andrew leave the site, but that was it. Nothing more about him, or the agent."

"And Agent Brown isn't picking up his phone," Tony added frustratedly as he slammed his phone down onto the receiver. "It just keeps going to his answering machine."

"But the phone is on, yes?" Ziva asked, looking a little hopeful.

"Well, yeah, otherwise it wouldn't—"

"We can get McGee to trace it and get a location." She jumped up from her desk. "What is his number?"

Tony quickly scribbled it down on a sticky note before passing it over to her. "Go."

She didn't even bother giving him a response before she was racing over to the staircase and heading down to Abby's lab – the stairs were definitely faster than the elevator, anyway.

* * *

When she reached Abby's lab, she was greeted by the usual loud music as the agent and the forensics expert continued to try and crack the rest of the files on the flash drive. Jessica had provided them with the codes for the letters, and now it was a whole lot easier for them to find the different words in the files.

"God, I can't believe she had all of this intel…" Abby muttered, more to herself than anything, as she continued to scroll through the sections of code that had been broken, her eyes scanning all of the information that was there. "Heck, even _I_ would kill her if she had all this stuff about me."

McGee sent her a raised eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"I know I would," Ziva quipped from her spot beside McGee, where she seemed to have magically appeared. Before the agent could react fully (i.e. jump out of his skin), Ziva was placing the sticky note on his keyboard. "Trace this number."

McGee stopped short before glancing over at Ziva. "Trace it? Why?"

Ziva seemed to hesitate for a few moments, before going on to answer McGee's question. "It is the number for Agent Brown. He has not been heard of for a good few hours, and he is not answering any calls..."

"Isn't he the agent who's meant to be watching Andrew?" McGee asked, causing Abby to gasp.

"Is Andrew in trouble? Is he okay?" she asked worriedly, green eyes wide.

"He is fine," Ziva reassured, despite not knowing the answer herself. "We just need to check up on them. I have a feeling Andrew had one of those clubs, and the agent neglected to tell us."

Both Abby and McGee saw straight through the lie. Neither of them knew Agent Brown particularly well, but McGee knew that Gibbs was scary enough to make agents sure to report to him as soon as anything changed – because he would have any agent's head if they made a mistake like that.

So if Andrew was missing, then something was most definitely wrong.

Unfortunately, Ziva caught the doubting looks on Abby's and McGee's faces, and sighed, pursing her lips. "Do not make any assumptions," she warned. "Until we find out about Agent Brown and his whereabouts, we are to assume Andrew is safe and at school."

"That's a pretty dangerous assumption to make," Abby warned, her eyes narrowing.

Ziva huffed at her, before focusing on McGee. "Just find Agent Brown. We will go from there." She turned on her heel, nearing the door, when she stopped. "And make it quick. Gibbs is not pleased with this situation at all."

Abby and McGee only shared a look before getting to work on tracing the cell phone signal.

It was about five minutes later that Ziva's phone pinged, a message from McGee flashing on the screen and detailing an address.

An address just round the back of the school building.

The three field agents on their way to meet Agent Brown were suspicious as they left the building, but only Tony voiced his concerns aloud (as per usual).

"Why is Agent Brown at the back of the school building, and not _at_ the school building?" he asked no one in particular. When he received no response, he kept talking. "Maybe Andrew's back there? Maybe he has a friend who lives back there? It's possible."

"Well let's hope that's true," Gibbs responded gruffly as he exited the elevator, heading into the parking garage. "Ziva, make sure McGee keeps a track on that cell phone signal."

Ziva nodded as she pulled out her phone, making the call to McGee as they headed over to the Charger. "Got it."

"DiNozzo!"

Tony tossed the keys over to Gibbs as he climbed into the passenger seat. "Got it, boss – you're driving."

Ziva could only snort at the slight look of fear that appeared on Tony's face – Gibbs looked like he was on a mission. And when he was on a mission, he _sped_.

* * *

When Andrew began to regain consciousness, the first thing he realised was that he was moving. He didn't even know how, but he knew that he was moving – and he wasn't moving on his own. Someone, or some _thing_ , was moving him.

It was after that that he heard the low rumbling of an engine and felt the vibrations that came with a vehicle moving along a road – not even a dirt road, but a regular tarmac road that was just a little uneven and probably old. He could kind of hear other vehicles outside, so he assumed that it either wasn't a busy area, or it wasn't a busy time; and considering the last thing he remembered was meeting Alice after school, it had to be that it wasn't a busy area…

_Alice_.

Andrew's eyes opened sharply, and he felt himself begin to panic when he realised he had no idea where his best friend might be. All he remembered was talking and then screaming and then… that was it. No recollection of what happened to her at all.

The panic died down a little when he heard someone else breathing in whatever dark enclosed space he was in, but only a little. After all… he had no idea who was in there with him – it could be someone who could hurt him, one of the kidnappers… anyone. He couldn't see very far – he couldn't exactly tell how far he could see because he could feel his hands tied behind his back.

"Hello…?" he whispered into the darkness, wondering whether there was actually someone there, and whether or not they would answer him.

There was a beat of silence before Andrew heard a response. "…Andy…?"

Honestly, Andrew couldn't believe his ears. " _Alice_?"

"What's going on?"

The teenaged male tried to push himself up into a seated position, his eyes darting around as if he could actually see what was going on around him. It was a shame whatever box they were in didn't have windows. "I… I think we're moving…?"

"Gee, well done, Sherlock," Alice grumbled from where she lay, huffing. There was a bit of shuffling before she continued. "I mean what's _happening_ to us, Andrew. Not what's going on at this exact moment."

"…Ah." He was quiet for a moment as he thought about what could be happening. They were being taken somewhere against their will, tied up and in a dark, moving space (which was most probably the back of a van or a truck)… so, using that information, Andrew could safely conclude that they were being kidnapped.

Of course, that wasn't a _nice_ conclusion. But it was a conclusion.

"I think we've been kidnapped," he murmured softly, though he knew that she could hear him. After all, they were the only ones in that dark enclosed space.

Alice was silent for a good few moments, and part of Andrew began to panic, thinking that she'd somehow either disappeared or fallen unconscious, but eventually she spoke again.

"Why would we get kidnapped…?" she whispered, though it seemed like a question directed more at herself than anything.

Andrew had a feeling he knew why they were being kidnapped, but didn't voice it. After all, what if he was wrong? What if he actually _didn't_ know why they were being kidnapped, and these guys were just... child traffickers who'd spotted an opportunity and taken it? Sure that didn't sound great, but theoretically there were many options.

"I just hope we find out soon," he mumbled, causing Alice to snort.

"And if we get an answer we don't want to hear?"

" _Then_ we're screwed."

* * *

Tony had to resist the urge to do two things as he climbed out of the Charger:

Put on his shades, and vomit.

Honestly, he'd been with Gibbs for a while now, and even though he was pretty used to his speedy driving, this time had been the worst yet. He didn't even drive this fast when they were catching a criminal, and Tony was sure of that.

No, this speed had something to do with the fact that Andrew was missing.

As Gibbs began to head towards the building where the cell phone signal had been traced, Tony dropped back to talk to Ziva.

"Hey," he started, not even letting go her respond before continuing in hushed tones, "do you think Gibbs is getting attached to this kid?"

Ziva raised an eyebrow over at him. "Who, Andrew?" At Tony's nod, she scoffed lightly. "Doesn't Gibbs not at least get a little attached to every child involved in a case? It is his instinct."

"But he's getting way closer to Andrew than he usually does."

"Andrew has also been staying at his home for a little while, Tony. It is only natural for Gibbs to get attached."

"But _this_ attached?"

Ziva sighed. "If you are referring to the fact that we sped here, need I remind you that we have no idea where the child is and are now looking for him?"

"But Gibbs has no need to be worried because he's pulled a stunt like this before," Tony pointed out, his hands in his pockets as they reached the front door with Gibbs.

"Yes, but that was on school property – not in a residential building _behind_ the plot."

"Would you two quit _gabbing_ for once?" Gibbs asked, glancing back over his shoulder at the agents before turning to knock on the door.

A few moments later, the door was answered by an elderly man – an elderly man who looked relieved at the sight of the three agents.

"Oh thank God," he breathed, opening the front door wider as he turned to call over his shoulder, "Honey! They're here!"

Tony raised an eyebrow at that, speaking what had been going on in all three agents' minds. "You were expecting us...?" he asked slowly, glancing at Gibbs nervously. What exactly was going on?

Before the man at the door could answer, a woman appeared at the door as well – this one a good couple of years younger than the man was; young enough to be his daughter. In fact, she looked enough like the man to be his daughter anyway.

"I never thought you guys would be so quick," she commented. "All I hear from my colleagues is that you government agent types are slow." At the confused looks on the agents' faces, the woman hesitated. "You guys _are_ government people, right?"

All three pulled out their badges and flashed them. "NCIS Special Agents Gibbs, DiNozzo and David," Gibbs explained briefly before returning to frowning deeply at the situation at hand. "You called someone already?"

"We found someone at the bottom of our garden," she explained. "A guy in a suit. We thought we should call the police, but he had a badge..."

Gibbs brushed past the house occupants, barely waiting for the female to catch up with him as he made his way towards the back of he house.

"He's at the bottom of the garden, she explained as she passed Gibbs and led him to the garden door. Unlocking it and pushing aside the glass door, she led him out and down to the area she spoke about, standing aways back.

The bottom of the garden dipped down into a slight ditch – only slight, but it was enough to ensure that whatever body was there wasn't visible until you got up close. The area around the ditch – and inside the ditch – was covered in foliage, dead and alive. Carefully making his way down into the ditch, Gibbs focused on the small pile of dead leaves on the far side of the ditch – the pile that didn't quite look like a pile.

Moments after descending into the ditch, Tony arrived at the edge of the area and peered down at his boss, watching him. "What's there, Boss? Need a hand?"

"Just stay up there with the homeowner, DiNozzo," was Gibbs' gruff reply.

Tony blinked for a few moments, before turning to the woman who was standing beside him with a worried expression on her face and flashing her a smile. "Special Agent DiNozzo," he introduced himself

The woman merely raised an eyebrow at him. "I heard," she responded simply, before going back to focusing on Gibbs in the ditch.

And, to be honest, it was a good thing that she did. Because within moments she was gasping and wide-eyed.

Heck, even DiNozzo went wide-eyed when Gibbs brushed the dead foliage off the bulk in the ditch, only to come face to face with the exact person they seemed to be looking for, face pale and eyes glazed over.

The lead agent turned to look at the two with a grim expression on his face.

"Well..." Tony started slowly, "at least we found Agent Brown."


	16. Chapter 15

_Heck, even DiNozzo went wide-eyed when Gibbs brushed the dead foliage off the bulk in the ditch, only to come face to face with the exact person they seemed to be looking for, face pale and eyes glazed over._

_The lead agent turned to look at the two with a grim expression on his face._

" _Well..." Tony started slowly, "at least we found Agent Brown."_

* * *

"I am going to need you to tell me exactly what you remember happening."

Within minutes of finding the agent dead at the bottom of the backyard, Gibbs ordered a call to be made to investigate. And as soon as the message had been passed on that it was one of their own, Ducky, Palmer and the Crime Scene Analysts arrived as soon as they could.

Hence Ziva being put on interviews whilst Tony went around taking photos of the yard and surrounding fences. After all, the killer (whoever they were) had to get in and out of the location somehow.

The old man looked up at Ziva nervously, wringing his wrinkled hands in his lap. "That's the problem – I don't remember much," he explained. "I don't remember seeing anyone or anything coming into our yard... at least, not until the dog started acting up..."

Ziva raised an eyebrow. "The dog?"

The old man gave her a smile. "Yes, li'l old Lucky. Always manages to get himself in trouble, but he's the greatest help to us. Givin' him a walk every day really helps me get out the house." The man's gaze shifted in a certain direction, and Ziva followed until she spotted it.

A golden retriever lay curled up in the armchair not too far from where she sat, head resting on its paws as it stared at her through big brown eyes. Almost as if it were analysing her.

Ziva would have thought that too, had she not remembered that this was an animal. Then again, so was Tony half of the time.

"What did Lucky do?" she asked, turning back to the old man so that she could take more notes. Noticing how the old man sent one more fond glance towards his dog, the female agent smiled gently.

"When I let him out into the garden earlier," he started, "well, we'd already been out on our daily walk, and he wanted to get outside for a bit; but when we let him out he started barkin' a whole lot more than usual. And he was hoverin' around the bottom of the garden, when he usually doesn't head down there – especially if he's gonna go out runnin'. So I decided to head out and see what he was fussin' over, and I saw him there and… and the ditch didn't look right. My daughter came out and went down, and she found a foot, and we called you."

Ziva pursed her lips as she noted down what the man was telling her, thoughts flitting through her mind. "And you don't recall hearing or seeing anyone come into your garden at any point during the day?" she asked, the frown on her face deepening slightly when the man shook his head and responded with a solemn, "Nothin'."

The female agent had to hold back a sigh at that, before plastering a smile onto her face and directing it at the old man sitting beside her. "Well, thank you so much for your help, sir." She began to stand, about to head off when he started speaking.

"The man at the bottom of my garden…" he started slowly, glancing down at his hands before up at Ziva, "was he a good man?"

Ziva met his gaze, and a genuine smile appeared on her face. "Yes, he very much was," she informed him, and when he returned her smile she deemed it okay to leave him to report what she had found to Gibbs.

Said Senior Supervisory Agent was at the bottom of the garden with Tony, with the younger male taking photos of the crime scene whilst Gibbs spoke with Ducky about the cause of death.

Which Ziva did not hesitate to ask about as soon as she approached the men.

"Gunshot wound to the back of the head," Ducky informed her solemnly. "Poor lad had no idea what was coming his way, and so he had no way of stopping it – the lack of defensive wounds and foreign tissue beneath his nails is a clear indication of that."

Ziva blinked before frowning. "So he was ambushed?" she asked slowly, her eyes drifting from Ducky to Gibbs.

The silver-haired agent simply nodded.

Tony was the next to speak up. "And that means—"

"Whoever ambushed the guy was doing it so that he could get to Andrew," Ziva finished with wide eyes.

Gibbs eyes hardened as he made his way up and out of the ditch, taking the hand that DiNozzo offered. "We need to do a neighbourhood search. Find that kid."

"I'll start right away, Gibbs," Ziva said quickly. "And I'll inform McGee."

"Get him to do some satellite searches."

Tony frowned. "Boss, I don't think we own…" At the look that Gibbs gave him, the agent trailed off, and his eyes widened. "…Ah. You know what? I'll call him. Ziva, you go get a start on that searching."

Ziva gave him a deadpan look. "What do you think I was going to do? Just stand here?" Just as she was about to head off to start on the search, Tony called out to her.

"And start at the school!"

She scoffed. "Again: what do you think I was going to do?!"

* * *

The next half an hour or so in the back of the van was practically silent, other than the sounds of its occupants breathing softly. Andrew had his eyes shut, listening out for any sounds that would indicate him as to where they were headed. After all, he'd probably have an idea of where they'd be heading, even if his knowledge of wherever they were going would probably be limited. It would be better than nothing.

That was when he realised something, and it made him frown.

"It's almost silent."

Even though he could barely see her, Andrew was sure he could see Alice jerk up a little at that. "What?"

"It's practically silent outside," he repeated.

She scoffed. "Andy, it's been quiet the whole time," she pointed out, as if it were obvious.

Andrew rolled his eyes at her, heaving a big sigh, before deciding to reiterate his point. "Alice, it's _silent_ , not quiet. There are _no other cars_ outside."

The female seemed to go silent at this, listening out for the sounds of cars going by. And Andrew was right – there was practically no noise coming from outside. All she could hear was the rumble of the van they were in – nothing else, really.

Aside from talking.

There was a fair bit of talking.

"I think I can hear the people moving us," she murmured lowly to Andrew, moving her head towards where she thought the sound was coming from.

Andrew frowned and carefully rolled in Alice's direction, stopping when he felt his foot hit a metal wall. "Can you hear what they're saying?" he whispered to her.

The two were silent for a few more moments, before Alice eventually answered. "Something about a warehouse?" she said, though she sounded a little uncertain. "I don't know, it's really muffled... these walls are too thick."

Andrew huffed quietly, though the cogs in his mind began to whirr. Fairly quiet roads, warehouse... there were a lot of options, he supposed, but the one that really stuck out to him was 'industrial district'. It stuck out to him because it made the most sense.

Almost empty after school hours, badly designed roads, a _warehouse_ … and it would make complete sense if there was a van or a truck driving into the area.

Crap.

"Do you hear anything else?" Andrew whispered to Alice, hoping that she could at least give him some more clues as to where they were being taken. After all, these guys seemed to think that the two of them were still knocked out – maybe they could get more information out of them whilst they still had the chance.

Before Alice could say anything else, though, the two of them felt the van begin to stop, and they tensed.

Well, wherever they were being taken… they were there _now_.

* * *

Ziva couldn't help huffing as she searched the school campus, keeping her eyes out for any sign of the teenage boy. All the agents knew he had a habit of disappearing when he didn't want to be found, and he could be very good at it if he really tried. He just had to have a _reason_ for hiding away – and the female agent was pretty sure that they'd taken away his _only reason_ for disappearing. So why would Andrew all of a sudden disappear off the face of the earth now?

Well, she supposed she was exaggerating a bit at that, but she totally blamed Tony for it. Tony and his big mouth, with all those exaggerations and movie quotes that he didn't stop talking about even _halfway_ through a date...

Whoops, she wasn't supposed to think about that. She wasn't _allowed_ to think about that. That line of thinking was not important now – not when they had a missing child on the loose. Well, technically he was a teenager, but still a minor.

After finding nothing on her walk around the school, she finally headed up to the reception desk at the front of the school, sending a polite smile to the old woman who sat there. It was not returned.

"Excuse me, I am searching for—" Ziva started, only to get cut off.

"Ma'am, it's after school hours," the woman cut in with a clipped tone. "Unless your child is partaking in an after school activity, I hold no record of where he or she is."

The female agent bristled, her dark eyes narrowing.

"I am searching for a child who was only allowed to attend this school under protection," she hissed, leaning on the desk. "His parents were murdered, and we are still searching for the killers, who could be out searching for him. Now, since you interrupted me, I am only going to ask you this once: where is Andrew Parkson?"

The woman seemed to move further and further from Ziva as she spoke, her eyes widening in recognition at the name. "Oh, Andrew? Let me check..." She swivelled to her computer and began to type, bringing up various screens before turning to Ziva. "As far as we know, he hasn't been registered for any clubs. He shouldn't be in the school building at all right now. In fact, most of the clubs would have finished at least an hour ago – the latest clubs would be just finishing now."

"What clubs are they?" Ziva demanded.

"Arts and Drama rehearsals for school productions."

She sighed and ran a hand over her face. "Nothing that he would be interested in, then," she muttered, more to herself than anyone else.

The receptionist seemed to hesitate for a moment before piping up again. "Hey was spotted on school cameras about half an hour after school finished."

Ziva's head shot up. "Where?"

"He... he was leaving through the school fields, at the back. Loads of the kids in the school take that way, but not usually to go home. Especially since Andrew is usually reported to be leaving through the front gate."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I think we're all pretty sure, ma'am." Andrew teacher approached the desk with a cup of coffee in her hand, heading towards the desk as if to ask the receptionist something. "Andrew never has, nor will he ever, leave through that back gate. The only times he has ever been through that gate are during breaks, and he is usually seen going with another of the students. They're never out there for more than ten minutes."

"What other student is this?"

"Alice Miller." A thoughtful look appeared on the teacher's face. "You know, someone else came in asking the same questions a couple of hours ago. You don't happen to know them, do you?" At Ziva's alarmed expression, the teacher decided to elaborate. "Two other women came in here, claiming to be agents. We gave them the same information we gave you..."

Ziva was off before she finished listening to the woman speak, heading straight for where she assumed the back gate was. It took her a little longer to find it than she expected, but after asking a couple of school janitors she eventually found it. She squeezed through a gap in the hedge and emerged onto a small park, with a single bench facing the road. Frowning slightly, she walked over to it. It was empty, of course – no one was sitting on it – but near the bench sat an iPod with the earbuds still plugged in, music playing faintly out of the mini speakers. Granted, she knew that wasn't Andrew's, but seeing that set her off.

Glancing around a little more, the female agent spotted something that was important. Very important.

Tyre marks. On the road.

Why would a van need to get away that quickly, except if it was hiding something?

And it was right in front of the bench.

The information she found wasn't definite... but it was something.

Pulling out her cell phone, she dialled Gibbs' number and waited for him to pick up before speaking. "Andrew is missing. There is no sign of him on school property, but according to teachers there were others searching for him. And I found tyre marks on the road."

There was barely a pause before, " _We're heading over right now. Stay put, David._ "

* * *

Andrew had to think fast. He had no idea what these people would do to him – to them _both_ – if they realised they were awake and had been trying to listen to what they were saying. They could be killed or – _worse_ – tortured. And they were only kids.

Then again, they got _kidnapped_. So whoever had them clearly didn't have their moral priorities straight.

"Quick, pretend to be knocked out," he hissed to Alice. Her response almost made him laugh.

"How the frick are we supposed to do that?"

"Play dead?"

"I'm not a damn dog."

"That's not exactly what your hairstyle says."

"How dare—!"

"Shhhhh!" he hissed, eyes wide. "They're coming!"

The two teens shut their eyes quickly and attempted to go limp, steadying their breaths. Alice seemed to be more successful at it, but before he could shift or change his position the doors to their moving container opened, and light filtered into the metal box. Andrew had to try really hard not to open his eyes as he heard the movement, his body as limp as he could make it.

Eventually a voice spoke. "Looks like they're still out." It was a female voice, a little gruff.

Another voice spoke, this one also female. "Still? Seriously?"

"Yeah," the first one responded.

"Bring them in anyway," said a third female, her distant voice sounding like it came a fair distance from the back of the vehicle. "If they're asleep now, it makes it a whole lot easier to tie them up."

_Tie them up?!_ Now Andrew was trying very hard not to seem tense and ready to move. After all, he had no idea what these people had in mind for him – they wanted to tie him up? To what? And why? So many questions that he couldn't ask right then because he was supposed to be unconscious.

Then again, they had no idea when they were supposed to wake up, so maybe he could at least wake up a little...

Within moments he felt himself being hauled out of the van and placed on his feet, though due to the limpness of his body his knees buckled almost immediately, his head lolling to the side. It was a good thing someone was holding him up, or he definitely would've fallen.

And then he was being moved.


	17. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! It's been a long, long time, I know, but a lot has been going on. I, AJ, have actually just started university, so there was a lot of preparation and packing to do for it, and now there's a whole lot of work to do for my course. I was hoping to get this fic done faster but I haven't, and I'm really sorry for the lack of updates, guys. I just haven't been able to write as much recently.
> 
> But! I have the next chapter for you guys! I managed to get this one done recently, so I hope you guys enjoy it!

_Within moments he felt himself being hauled out of the van and placed on his feet, though due to the limpness of his body his knees buckled almost immediately, his head lolling to the side. It was a good thing someone was holding him up, or he definitely would've fallen._

_And then he was being moved._

* * *

He was being moved. Dragged, actually. He had no idea where, and he desperately wanted to look, so he decided to make his presence known.

The teen made a small groaning noise as he was dragged, causing whoever was moving him to pause for a moment before speeding up. Andrew scowled inwardly. They were ruining his favourite pair of shoes by dragging them on the tarmac...

Whoever was dragging him seemed to slow for a moment, as if they were realising something, before they picked up speed again, continuing to drag him towards their destination. Andrew groaned again, this time louder (and this time partially due to the dull headache that he'd somehow managed to ignore for the whole journey there) and the captor shook him a little.

"Shut _up_ ," they growled – the voice sounded feminine, like he'd heard earlier. "This place isn't empty, and if you give us away I'll hurt you and your little girlfriend so _badly_ …"

The threat made Andrew tense, but he did as he was told, keeping his mouth shut as he continued to be dragged to who-knows-where. Eventually they came to a stop, and the woman let go of him so that he stood on his own. He took that moment to open his eyes and lift his head.

Only to have the back of his head slapped harshly.

"Keep your head down, _brat_."

Andrew's hands clenched into fists where they were held behind his back, but he simply listened as a door – an old door that _really_ needed to be oiled – creaked open, and soon enough he was being half-dragged into whatever room or building they were going into. Half-dragged because now he had better footing, even though the way he was being pulled still made him stumble.

Once he was sure they were inside, Andrew risked lifting his head again to see where they were, and judging by the fact that the woman didn't slap his head down again, he assumed they weren't at risk of being caught.

That didn't mean he _liked_ what he saw.

They seemed to be in some sort of old abandoned warehouse, with cold stone floors and equally cold stone walls, everything a dull grey. The room they were in was large, with old crates rotting against the walls. Against one of the walls Andrew could see two doors – one of them open slightly with a window in it, and the other seemingly shut firmly. And the room was only lit up slightly by windows – all of which were high up. So even if he _did_ want to escape through those, he couldn't reach them.

Great.

In the middle of the large warehouse room sat two metal chairs – two metal chairs that Andrew was being dragged right over to. Any efforts to pull away were silenced when he felt something cool and sharp against the back of his neck.

"Don't be stupid, brat."

The teen practically slumped as he was forced into the seat, and winced as his wrists were cuffed to the back legs of the chair. Well, that just made it a whole lot harder to escape. Just across from him, he watched as Alice (still pretending to be knocked out) was handcuffed to the seat, her head lolling about aimlessly. Once that was done the two women disappeared, leaving the two teens alone.

"Alice!" Andrew hissed. " _Alice!_ "

The blonde waited a moment or two, before her eyes blinked open. "Is it safe?" she whispered.

"As safe as it's gonna get."

She lifted her head, and her eyes darted around the room for a few moments before they landed on her friend's form. "Where are we?" she asked.

"A warehouse."

"Yeah, I kind of guessed that, but _where_?"

"I don't know. I wasn't allowed to look – she slapped my head when I tried."

Alice pursed her lips, though Andrew wasn't sure whether it was because she was thinking or because she was laughing – he really hoped it wasn't the second one.

"Would you like to share your thoughts?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

She seemed to hesitate for a moment before speaking. "Just imagining the look on your face when she slapped the back of your head," she commented with a small smirk, snorting at the disgruntled look on his face. She seemed to take a few moments being amused before her grin fell and she looked around the room. "Is there any chance of us getting out?" she asked quietly.

Andrew shook his head, his eyes lingering on the doors – the only real way out of the warehouse. "The windows are too high, and there are only two doors – the only one with a window in it has light shining through, so that's got to be the exit…"

"But they're probably guarding it," Alice finished for him.

"Yup."

"Does that mean…?"

"There's no way that we can fight our way out. Let's just… hope that we get found."

"Do you know how low those chances are?"

Andrew pursed his lips. He knew _exactly_ how low the chances were, but if these guys were really intent on solving that case… then there was a good chance that these two wouldn't be kidnapped forever.

* * *

_Click, click, click._

Ziva sighed as she pulled the camera away from her face, staring down at the tyre prints on the road. That was the only lead they had so far on what had transpired there with the teens and whoever had joined them. Just… the fact that they had disappeared without a trace and there was no way to find them freaked her out. How could there be no cameras around there?

McGee and Abby had already been informed, and were looking for any clue as to where the kids had gone, but it wasn't like they'd called back with any information. Not yet.

Turning towards the school, Ziva spotted Gibbs attempting to gain any clues as to what had happened, but it seemed as if he was coming up blank too. Which never usually happened – Gibbs almost always had a plan for everything. When Gibbs _didn't_ have a plan, then something was _seriously_ wrong.

Her eyes glanced over to the bench, where the iPod still sat on the ground, untouched. Music was still playing out of the earphones fairly loudly – loud enough to pierce the silence between the two agents. Snapping a photo of it, she moved to pick it up, turning it over. Her blood went cold when she spotted the little inscription on the back.

"Gibbs?" she called out. When the Senior Supervisory Agent looked over, she continued. "I do not think Andrew has been kidnapped alone." She held up the iPod for Gibbs to see. "This is Alice's, and there is no other trace of her being around. The school _did_ say that she had been with Andrew, but…"

Gibbs pursed his lips before pulling out his phone and making a call. "DiNozzo! Call Petty Officer Miller and find out about where her daughter is."

" _On it, Boss._ "

"Have they cleared the crime scene yet?"

" _Body's being moved to autopsy as we speak, Boss. Photos taken, eye witness reports logged._ "

"Good. Head back." He flipped his phone shut, before turning to Ziva. "See if you can get any eye witness reports from the neighbours." He indicated at the houses across the street which had full view of the small area. "Someone's got to have seen them."

She nodded before crossing the street quickly, heading to the house that was directly opposite them. Knocking on the door, she gave a polite smile when it was opened to reveal a middle-aged woman. "Hello, my name is Special Agent David, and I'm with NCIS…"

* * *

Tony let out a huff as he walked into Abby's lab, staring down at his phone but seeing nothing except a lack of returned calls and no texts – absolutely nothing from Gibbs or Petty Officer Miller. Great. As he approached the desk in the lab where the other two were working, he slipped the phone back into his pocket, looking over the shoulders of the two who stood there. "Still got nothing?"

McGee frowned as he turned his head slightly looked over at Tony, shifting away slightly to put a bit more space between them. "What makes you think we've got nothing?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, going back to focusing on his screen.

"You haven't called Gibbs yet with any findings." Tony's tone was almost smug. _Almost_.

The dark-haired forensics expert turned her head to look straight at Tony. "This is hard, you know!" she interjected, glaring at Tony. "I'm still translating the flash drive, and McGee has to access every camera in that area to find a truck which we have no clue about – not the colour, not the number plate, nothing! I don't know why you're nagging us!"

Any traces of a smirk wiped off Tony's face as he faced Abby. "Because Alice Miller was kidnapped along with Andrew," Tony explained to Abby calmly. "You know, that blonde girl who's Andrew's closest friend? Yeah, her."

The anger on Abby's face seemed to give away to shock, before she turned to McGee with a look of resolve on her face. "Search faster."

McGee gave Abby an incredulous look, huffing. "What, so you're on his side now?!"

Tony pulled out his phone to check if he'd had any missed calls as he moved away from the two bickering adults, heading over to Abby's back office for quiet (though the usual punk rock music wasn't playing as loudly, funnily enough). He stopped short when he realised the room he was heading into was empty, frowning deeply. There was no one in Abby's desk seat.

Crouching down, his heart plummeted when he couldn't find anyone underneath the desks either.

"Uh, Abs?" he called out, standing fully and turning to look at the Forensics expert. "Sorry to interrupt your little bickering session, but..." he gestured to the empty room, "where's Jessica?"

Abby frowned as she moved to have a look in the small room. "She said she needed to use the toilet..."

"When?"

"...About an hour ago?"

"About an hour ago?!"

"I thought she was back! And this _is_ a building full of agents."

"Agents who have no clue what a little girl is doing on premises, and an agency where an agent recently got killed on the job for protecting a teenager who has now been kidnapped!" Tony looked over to McGee. "McGee!"

"Searching for Jessica now." The younger male began to tap furiously at the keyboard, searching for any sign of the little red headed girl. Any sign to show that she was safe, still in the building, and just got lost when she was heading back from the toilet.

"I knew I should've gone with her," Abby muttered under her breath.

"And why didn't you?" Tony asked with a raised eyebrow.

Abby shrugged a little. "She can be very convincing..."

Just as Abby finished speaking, McGee's fingers slowed to a stop on the keyboard, his lips pursing as he stared at what he saw on the screen. "Uh, guys? Have a look at this..."

The other two turned to focus on McGee's screen, and both their jaws went slack at what they saw.

What seemed to be a woman was guiding a small red headed figure through the main lobby of the NCIS building, the hand on the little figure's back appearing comforting but the expression on the woman's face saying otherwise. The woman and the girl would've been ignored, had it not been for the fact that all three of the adults clearly recognised the little red headed girl as Jessica, the daughter of the dead Petty Officer and her late husband.

And the woman nudging her along was none other than Petty Officer Mary Harper.

The trio were silent for a little while before Tony spoke: "How long?"

Abby was about to ask what Tony meant, when McGee took a closer look at the screen. "Half an hour ago. They'll already be gone," he answered, causing Tony to swear violently under his breath.

"McGee, call boss and update him on what's happened," the senior field agent snapped, "then keep trying to track down that van – wherever they took Andrew is probably where they took the girl. And have a look at security cameras nearby to see if you can find anything weird. I'll keep trying to get in contact with Petty Officer Miller to see if she knows where her daughter is."

McGee nodded and was just turning back to do as Tony had told him when Abby turned to Tony with a slightly panicked look on her face. "What do I do?" she asked.

Tony pursed his lips, thinking for a few moments, before deciding on what to say: "Keep translating. There has to be _something_ in there that can help us."

Abby looked slightly disappointed at the job she had been given, but nodded anyway, turning back to her computer and continuing with trying to break the code.

Tony stared down at his phone, watching the screen for a few seconds, before it suddenly lit up and the device began to buzz. The Senior Field Agent jumped slightly at the sudden buzzing, before answering the phone right away, not even bothering to look at the caller's ID. "Hello?"

" _Who is this?_ "

Tony's eyes widened slightly. "Petty Officer Miller! I'm so glad you finally decided to return my call!" Before she could even try to speak, he continued, walking towards Abby's office to take the call privately. "This is Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo from NCIS, I'm calling about your daughter—"

" _Alice isn't here._ "

"Is she supposed to be, Petty Officer?"

The woman seemed to hesitate on the other line, as if she was thinking about something. " _This morning she said that she'd be going to her father's… she hasn't been home for hours._ "

Tony's eyebrows rose. "And you're not worried about that, ma'am?"

" _I only get worried if her father calls._ "

"And has he called yet?" When he was met with silence, Tony frowned deeply. "Petty Officer Miller? Is something the matter."

" _I need to speak with my daughter's father._ "

Tony barely got a chance to speak before the line cut, and he huffed as he pulled the phone away from his ear. "The woman hung up on me!" Just as he was about to head out of the office and over to "help" (i.e. nag) Abby and McGee, his phone began to vibrate in his hand. He quickly answered the call, putting the phone to his ear. "You have reached the phone of one Very Special Agent DiNozzo."

" _Tell McGee you are looking for a blue van heading from around the area of the school; blank plates, tinted windows._ "

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Not even a 'hello', Ziva?"

" _Do it or Gibbs will end you._ "

"Got it." He ended the call as he walked back into the main lab. "Blue van, blank plates, tinted windows."

McGee and Abby both frowned as Tony approached them, giving him a confused look.

Tony rolled his eyes at them, before gesturing to the computer screen. "From within the school area. Go!"


	18. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Oh my goodness, it's been so long since I last updated this story. I am so sorry for that, but if you'd seen our profile (unless I've mentioned it here already and forgotten), both of us are at university now, and studying is hard. I don't have as much time to write as I'd really like to, and for that I'm truly sorry. Honestly.
> 
> But, I've got another chapter available for you! I really want to try and get this story rewritten and done by the end of this year, so hopefully I'll be writing more. Maybe not so much during the semester, but hopefully on holidays and such - when I have free time. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

Hitting dead ends was something pretty much everyone on the MCRT (or as it was more affectionately known as; Team Gibbs) hated with a passion. Cold cases were not their speciality, and when there were the lives of three minors on the line, it _definitely_ wasn't an option.

Hence the reason they would often still be in the office late at night, working on a case, even though they had already been warned that it would be better to work on a fresher mind (why anyone would even _think_ of suggesting that to the team, though, was yet to be found out).

This time, it was during the day, so they didn't have as much of a problem when it came to how late it was. It was more the fact that the kids had practically slipped out from beneath their noses. Just because they had let their eyes off them for pretty much _one moment_.

And due to that fact alone, Gibbs was _livid_.

"Has McGee found anything yet?" he demanded as he strode into the lab. McGee opened his mouth to speak, but Abby reached over and covered it quickly, giving him a look before answering herself.

"Not yet, Gibbs," she answered. "He's found some traces of the truck described, but he's still trying to find out where it's headed. It seems to be heading to the outskirts of town, but we're not sure." Finally looking over from her computer screen to Gibbs' face, she offered a small smile at the firm expression there in an effort to calm him down.

"Outskirts as in fewer cameras?"

_Ah_. _Now_ Abby understood why Gibbs looked so firm.

"Well… not unless we hack satellites and try to get real-time images… which would be totally illegal and _not_ something a government agency would do, right McGee?" She lowered the hand covering his mouth and nudged him lightly, indicating it was okay for him to speak.

He seemed to take a good few moments to consider his words before he actually spoke, letting the words out slowly as he considered them.

"Well… it definitely would be wrong…" Seeing the look on Gibbs' face, he backpedalled. "But… the CIA do that sort of stuff, right? If they can do it, why can't we? All we have to do is… hack into their servers…" The look Abby was giving him right then told him that she really wished she hadn't let him speak right then.

Just before Gibbs could respond to all that McGee had said (which Abby was really glad for, let's be honest), his phone rang, and he quickly flipped it open, putting it to his ear without even looking at who was calling. "Gibbs."

" _Boss, we have a visitor_ ," came Tony's voice through the phone, and before the senior supervisory agent could get any words in Tony continued. " _You're gonna want to get up here fast. This is important._ "

Gibbs ended the call without answering, turning on his heel and heading towards the elevator. "Keep following that truck, McGee."

"Got it, Boss!" McGee called out just as he left the room. Once Gibbs was gone, he gave a sigh of relief. "We really need to find those kids," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else – though the look on Abby's face clearly said that she agreed with the sentiment.

* * *

When Gibbs reached the bullpen, he didn't know whether he was surprised or not to find their first official suspect stood there, blonde hair tied up into somewhat of a bun and hazel eyes piercing as she looked around the bullpen. When they finally landed on Gibbs, they seemed to flash with anger, though whether it was towards him or not he didn't know. Either way, he knew this was a woman on a mission.

"Petty Officer Miller," he greeted with a nod, and her jaw seemed to clench before relaxing slightly.

"At what point were you going to tell me that my daughter had been _kidnapped_?!" she demanded, glaring harshly at him. "Not to mention that the reasoning for the kidnapping is a part of your _case_?! If I didn't have so much respect for my country and such a need to protect it, I would _kill_ you right now, Agent Gibbs!"

"Is that a threat, Petty Officer?" Gibbs asked, appearing cool on the outside. Tony, however, knew that the Senior Supervisory Agent was seething beneath the surface. All he needed was a reason to explode, and Tony was pretty sure he'd have that reason as soon as they found those kidnappers.

The Petty Officer just pursed her lips, giving Gibbs a steely look, before breathing out slowly through her nose. "I just found out that my daughter's father is not even in the country," she informed the agents coldly, "so I have absolutely no idea where my child is."

Tony and Ziva shared a look (one that Gibbs definitely didn't miss) before Ziva spoke up, "Have you tried to call her?"

The Petty Officer turned her firm look on Ziva, though the female agent appeared completely unfazed. "She's not one to pick up her phone anyway," she answered, before pausing for a moment. "…Trace it."

The confusion on Ziva's face was only momentary (and lasted way less time than the confusion on Tony's) but soon enough she was pulling out a pad and a pen and handing it over to the woman. "We'll need her number."

The woman simply scribbled the number as quickly and legibly as she could, before the pad was taken back and Ziva stood.

"I will run this down to McGee."

"Make it quick, Zi," Tony said, and she glanced back at him to give him a simple nod before racing to the staircase.

* * *

Alice was pretty shocked to feel the phone vibration in her back pocket. In fact, she'd all but forgotten about the device she still had, and she was suddenly terrified as to why it was vibrating just then – was it a call? Who was it?

Andrew seemed to recognise the look of fear on her face and frowned slightly at her. "Alice?" he whispered. "What is it?"

Alice hesitated for a moment, glancing towards the doors, before back over at Andrew. "It's my phone. It's... vibrating."

Andrew frowned for a moment, before his eyes lit up at the implications. _Vibrating?_ "Can you reach it?" he asked.

She gave him an incredulous look. "It's in my _back pocket_ ," she hissed. "My arms are _tied_ up. Do you _honestly_ think I can reach it?"

Andrew pursed his lips. "Well I wouldn't…" then a small smirk appeared on his face, "if you weren't a gymnast."

"What does that have to do with—" She stopped short, and then huffed out a laugh. "Do you honestly think I'm that flexible?"

"You have yet to prove otherwise."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Look, just because I'm flexible doesn't mean I'll be able to get out of these bonds."

"You know, in all honesty, I was thinking more about your core body strength. I mean, you could pull yourself off that chair."

"Without making a noise? I don't think so."

Andrew glanced towards the exit door for a few moments, waiting to see if any shadows or figures appeared in the glass, and when he saw none he turned back to Alice. "I think you'll be able to get away with it. There's no one outside from what I can see, and we're all the way in the middle of the room. They can't hear us, and even when they do come in—"

"It'll take them a good little while to reach us," she finished, a small smile on her face. "Of course you'd come to that conclusion."

"You're very welcome." He grinned at her cheekily. "Now get shimmying. We need to get in contact with them a.s.a.p."

As he spoke, Alice had already started trying to twist on the seat, trying to shift her arms to either reach her phone or get off the seat fully – which one she was doing, she hadn't exactly made clear to Andrew, but she was doing _something_. Eventually, though, she seemed to huff and give up on that method, slipping her shoes off her feet.

That was when Andrew realised her legs had been tied together. Looking down at his feet, he realised he wasn't quite in the same situation, but he wasn't exactly talented enough to get off the seat on his own. Especially since the back his seat was probably higher than Alice's (which he realised as soon as he tried getting up by himself) and would result in the seat falling over if he tried to get up. And _that_ would cause too much noise.

Noticing how she was twisting her ankles together, he winced. "Doesn't that hurt?"

"I'm wearing socks, moron."

"It'd still hurt."

"Do you want me to get out of this and get my phone or not? If you do, then please _shut up_." She winced as she tried to pull one of her feet up and out of the bond, not quite succeeding, before going back to twisting her ankles again. It felt like it took forever, but eventually the ropes binding her ankles came loose, and she slipped off her sneakers, shimmying her legs out of the bindings.

Before Andrew even had the chance to silently cheer at the fact that they were probably one step closer to getting out of there, Alice had planted her feet either side of the seat she was on and was pushing herself to her feet, sliding her arms from behind the chair so that she could reach her back pocket for her phone.

The teenaged male could only watch as she slid the phone out of her pocket and then pulled them around as if they were a skipping rope, the phone coming to a stop in front of her in her handcuffed hands. She simply grinned at the stunned expression on his face.

"I'm guessing you still can't get over it?"

"I don't think I ever will," he responded with a grin.

Alice pursed her lips as she unlocked her phone, letting out a sigh at what she saw.

"Missed calls from an unknown number."

Andrew frowned. _An unknown number… why would someone random be trying to call…?_ "Call them back?"

Alice looked over at him with a raised eyebrow. "Is that safe? What if it's some random company calling about insurance that has the wrong number?"

"Better to at least try."

She kept her lips pursed, staring down at the phone for a few minutes longer, before dialling the number, setting it on speaker but lowering the volume so that they could both hear.

* * *

McGee sighed as the phone wasn't picked up for a third time, the call going to the answering machine. If it wasn't for the fact that he had gritted his teeth slightly, his hands tapping impatiently on the desk in front of him, it would've been difficult to tell how frustrated he was. Finding those teens was becoming more and more like an impossible task, because it was looking increasingly unlikely that they'd ever answer their phones.

Plus, with Gibbs and Ziva both breathing down his neck (as well as Petty Officer Miller, which was kind of scary to think about so McGee didn't really think about that) he felt his focus sliding from "find those kids at all costs" to "find those kids if you don't want to be murdered in your sleep".

Even Abby was giving him a worried look from where she sat beside him.

He was just about to try calling again when suddenly the phone started ringing. He almost jumped out of his skin, eyes wide, before checking the number. _It's not the Director._

"Answer it!" Abby hissed, voicing what everyone else in the room had been thinking. McGee didn't even hesitate before pressing the answer button, putting the device on loudspeaker.

"Hello?"

" _He… h-hello?_ "

It was Petty Officer Miller who reacted first, moving closer to McGee and Abby and trying to lean towards the phone. "Alice? Is that you?"

" _M-mom…?_ "

Everyone seemed to breathe out a sigh of relief, before McGee began typing away at the computer, starting to trace the call. "Alice Miller?" He spoke, holding a hand up to silence the Petty Officer before she could say anything. "This is Agent McGee, from NCIS."

" _McGee?_ " This voice was fainter, but McGee recognised it right away. After all, it was the same voice that got away with yelling at Tony – it was hard to forget a voice like that.

"Andrew!" Okay, _now_ they were getting somewhere. GPS was narrowing them down quickly – or as quickly as the technology allowed it to, which in McGee's eyes wasn't quickly enough. The whole system needed an upgrade.

" _Oh, thank God!_ " There seemed to be a bit of muttering overheard, which McGee assumed was the two conversing for a little bit, before Alice spoke up.

" _Andy says that you're gonna get us out of here._ "

"We're tracking you as we speak," McGee responded, though she hadn't really asked a question.

"What do you know about your location?" Ziva spoke up, moving to stand on the other side of McGee. "Or about how you got there? Any landmarks?"

There was muttering in the background, and then Alice spoke again. " _The van was dark; no windows in the back, where we were shoved. We were forced to keep our heads down as we entered the building, but it's definitely a large warehouse. Kinda abandoned._ "

"Abandoned warehouse _definitely_ narrows it down," Ziva muttered with a sigh.

" _Not quite sure what they used to keep in here…_ "

Suddenly, there was a call of, " _The flash drive!_ " from Andrew, and a shuffling as the phone was moved closer to him. " _Did you guys manage to get into it?_ "

McGee and Abby shared a look, wondering how much they could share with Alice and the Petty Officer present, before Ziva rolled her eyes and answered with a simple, "Yes."

Andrew seemed to give a sigh of relief, and then Alice spoke up.

" _Did you know my mom knew about it?_ "

That was when the Petty Officer tensed from her spot between McGee and Abby, her eyes wide.

" _She got sent a video and has a transcript of it on her computer. The transcript doesn't say who did it… but the video got deleted. Permanently. As in, not even in the Recycling Bin._ "

"Is the transcript still available?" Ziva asked, looking at the Petty Officer even though she was speaking to her daughter.

" _Should be._ "

"Alice, you were not supposed to access those files," the Petty Officer said sternly, though the look of surprised she wore on her face said something completely different.

" _Your password hasn't changed for five years, mom. It's due an upgrade._ "

"Alice… _I_ haven't even accessed those files in about a year."

" _But did you forget about them? Seriously? They have_ everything _in them._ "

"No, I…" She took a deep breath, glancing over at Ziva. "At the time they were accessed, I had been… investigating."

" _Investigating what?_ " This time, it was Andrew who had spoken up.

From the look on the woman's face, Petty Officer Miller clearly didn't want to speak about this here. Not now, when her daughter and her best friend were in danger. Instead of answering the teenage girl, she turned to McGee. "Have you found them yet?" she asked.

" _No, but we've found you_ ," a new voice sang through the phone. Everyone in the room visibly recoiled at the new person's appearance, but they kept going. " _And you know what? I think this little conversation you guys have been having is over. Ta-ta!_ "

The line went dead, the only sound in the room being the dull dial tone.

It was after a few good seconds of silence that McGee spoke up. "I narrowed down the location, Boss," he spoke up quietly.

"Send them to me," Gibbs responded without hesitation. "Ziva, gear up. Get DiNozzo and meet me at the car. And McGee," he spared a glance at the Petty Officer before addressing his agent. "Escort the Petty Officer home. We're going to need that information."

The two junior agents nodded before making a move, Ziva turning to head to the elevator with Gibbs on her tail whilst McGee began to grab some of his equipment to take with him. As he walked, Gibbs' lips were pressed into a firm line.

He was going to find those kids if it was one of the last things he did.


	19. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hola! It's been a little while, but life has been hectic for me... however, I finally started feeling enough inspiration to keep writing, and it feels good! So I decided to get this chapter done and out to you guys! I hope you all enjoy it!

There were many things that Andrew wished had happened in his life.

He wished he was more dedicated to the football team – he was pretty damn good at it according to the coach, but he just never tried hard enough. Plus, using it as an excuse that one time to get Ziva and Tony off his back for a little while kinda tempted him to actually _try_ it. (Not that that memory was a particularly good one…)

He also wished his could help his sister more. She was young, she was vulnerable, and as hard as their parents'… _leaving_ was on him, it was a million times harder on her if her silence was any indication. After all, she was young, and now she was orphaned – her whole childhood was turned upside down.

But right then, in that moment, he _really_ wished that he'd seen one of the captors come up behind Alice. But it was dark in the warehouse, and they'd been so engrossed in the phone call that he'd missed the woman until it was too late – she'd grabbed Alice's phone out of her hands, whilst one of the others covered her mouth and dragged her back over to her seat.

Andrew looked _livid_ the moment Alice was touched.

"Let her _go_!"

The woman holding Alice down looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, before yanking Alice's hair back harder, causing the girl to scream.

The woman holding the phone, which was now off, gave him a sickly-sweet smile. "Awww, has the little Parkson boy got a crush on Miller? How adorable! Janet, did you hear that?" She flicked blonde hair over her shoulder as she glanced into the shadows, where one more woman walked out, the expression on her face one of extreme boredom.

She was glancing down at her fingernails as she walked over, barely sparing a glance at the teens. "I honestly don't see _why_. Stupid girl is pretty much like her stupid, stubborn mother."

Andrew got the feeling that if Alice had the chance to, she'd have shot that woman the dirtiest glare possible, so he decided to do it for her.

The woman, Janet, simply raised an eyebrow at her. "What, you think that little glare's gonna _do_ anything, boy? From what I can see, you're restrained. Just as kids should be."

The teen growled at her, and she scoffed.

"Filthy mutt."

The spit from the teen that followed earned him a slap, causing his head to whip to the side before he slowly brought it back, the hand-mark already forming on his cheek.

"If I were you," the blonde who had been holding the phone said from where she was suddenly standing beside Andrew, the electronic device discarded on the floor with cracks on the screen, "I would learn to respect authority. _Especially_ authority who could kill you without batting an eyelash." The glare the teen shot her merely caused her to smirk. "Now, let's get on to what you're _really_ here for, eh?"

* * *

McGee's eyes roamed over the computer system in front of him. Uncomplicated, unprotected… just like any old family home computer, he supposed.

Which made it more accessible to everyone.

He sighed as he cracked his knuckles, glancing over his shoulder at the Petty Officer. "Is there a specific location on your desktop that you keep the folder in?" he asked as he began to search for it manually, eyes scanning over the different folders available on the desktop.

"…It's usually hidden amongst most of my other documents," Miller explained, moving to stand behind McGee and watch what he was doing. "You don't really see it unless you go digging through my files."

The field agent nodded as he began to search folders, following the Petty Officer's directions as she led him to her folder. When he finally reached the protected folder, containing all of the information, he frowned slightly as he went through everything, before dialling Gibbs' number.

" _What've you got, McGee?_ "

"Well, it seems as if the Petty Officer was right, Boss," the agent commented as his eyes roamed over the information presented to him on the computer screen in front of him. "I'm looking at the data logs now, and other than last night, the folder hadn't been accessed in… nearly a year. Not even touched. No traces of deleted information on the computer either."

" _Do I sense a 'but' in there, McGee?_ "

"The information I've found and accessed was all password-protected, as Alice said. The thing is… the folder itself has been accessed more frequently than the files. Either someone accidentally got into this folder and left it… or someone came in to change files. Possibly delete them."

" _That it?_ "

"Well… no. I, uh… I went through the transcripts fully…"

" _And…?_ "

"Everything is pointing towards three people being part of some sort of drugs exchange, Boss. It doesn't look as if Parkson managed to complete her investigation, but…"

"Hartson."

McGee turned his head quickly to see Petty Officer Miller standing not too far from him, a mug of what was most likely tea in her hands as she stared at McGee with wide eyes. "I'm sorry, what was that?" the field agent asked.

"Hartson," she repeated, moving towards the computer, placing the mug on the desk beside her. "I remember… I remember Grace mentioning something about Hartson. They never got along that well, but…"

"Is it likely she'd be a suspect?"

"Off-duty she can be a pretty shifty individual."

" _Get me some info on Hartson, McGee._ "

"About to do that now, Boss." The field agent opened up the laptop to his left, beginning to type away and start his searches on the aforementioned Petty Officer. "Boss, I've also had a look at the building I traced the call to."

" _And?_ "

"It's completely abandoned. As in, no security footage from within the last two years _at all_. If you go in, you're going in blind. I couldn't find plans for the place anywhere."

" _Did you at least find out which way was the entrance?_ "

"Boss, there's only one proper door _into_ the building. Any other doors are too big and would raise too much suspicion." He opened up the appropriate page on his laptop and zoomed in. "It's on the west side of the building, not too far from the entry gates."

" _Get me that info on Hartson._ "

"On it." The call ended abruptly, and McGee set to work searching for any information he could on Harper. "Are you sure there's no more information that you have on this? Didn't you do any more digging?"

"Any information I had would've been on that computer," Miller explained. "If it's not there, it's been—"

"Deleted, right." McGee sighed. "And unrecoverable, it seems."

Miller pursed her lips. "I definitely wouldn't have deleted it, though. That information was too valuable, and Grace wanted my help in finding more information on everything. I didn't want to get in too deep, but…"

McGee just sighed. "You've been pulled in anyway," he finished for her, typing away at his laptop in an effort to find whatever information he could. About five minutes in, though, his phone started buzzing beside him. He quickly picked it up, answering without looking at the caller I.D. "McGee."

" _Hartson, Harper, Miller._ "

The agent frowned deeply, pulling the phone away from his ear to look at who was on the screen before putting it back. "Abby? What are you on about?"

" _I've finished! I've translated the documents on the drive! I mean, sure, it took longer than expected without someone here to help me, but…_ "

"You've finished?" A relieved smile appeared on McGee's face before it was wiped off quickly. "Those names you gave me are the suspects?"

" _Yep_."

"Relay them again to me."

* * *

Andrew's head hung down against his chest, his ears ringing and blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. If he hadn't been sure whether he'd bitten his tongue or the inside of his cheek before, he was now. He was pretty sure that the bruises forming on his cheek were one slap away from becoming an open wound, but he wasn't going to voice that.

"Head _up_ , _Parkson_."

The teen took a deep breath before lifting his head slowly, glaring at his captors darkly. "What?" he spat.

His chin was grabbed harshly as he was forced to look at the blonde woman in front of him – the sickly-sweet smile that had been there before had disappeared, only to be replaced by a dark glare. Granted, he'd been worse glares, but just the fact that she'd been able to switch so quickly freaked him out a bit.

"I'm going to ask you _one last time_ ," she almost growled, compressing his cheeks with her hand. "Where _is it_?"

Andrew resisted the urge to spit at her in favour of offering her an answer. "I don't _know_ ," he responded slowly, gritting his teeth. "I don't _have_ it."

His head was turned sharply towards Alice, who had a knife held against her cheek. Despite the aggression in the manoeuvre, she still managed to look him defiantly in the eyes. The words, " _don't tell them,_ " were written on her face clear as day.

"Tell us, or we _will_ hurt her," the dark-haired woman holding the knife threatened, twisting it slowly across the blonde girl's cheek.

Andrew pursed his lips shut. Despite the fact that Alice was his best friend, she knew _exactly_ why they couldn't give anything up (even if he hadn't completely told her where it was) and even she was willing to get hurt to protect them both. And yet, at the same time, he desperately didn't want her to get hurt; he was the one who pulled her into this, and if anything happened to her ith would be his fault… right?

"No," he replied, though his tone wavered slightly, not as firm as it had been just a moment ago.

He was surprised to find that, instead of doing as they'd threatened, the knife was pulled away from Alice's skin. At the same time, the blonde let go of his cheeks and moved away from his face, sighing.

"I didn't want to have to do this," she muttered, sounding solemn (though the look on her face told him that her intentions were far less than solemn). She turned towards a darker area of the room, where Janet had disappeared off to earlier. "Bring her in."

Andrew's moment of confusion lasted but a moment when he realised exactly who they meant, and his eyes widened, his body trying to fight against the bonds as soon as he spotted the red hair being grabbed harshly and being used to tow along the young girl that followed.

The sobbing child was thrown to the floor at Andrew's feet, and the teen didn't miss the purple hand-shaped bruise that was forming on her cheek. Before he could start yelling at anyone about it, though, a gun was being pointed at her. Janet merely smirked as she slowly turned off the safety.

"Tell us, or we put a bullet in her."

* * *

It wasn't often that the Charger was silent. On the way to a crime scene, there was usually some sort of banter between the agents – a (nearly silent) complaint about Gibbs' driving, some sort of banter between the agents (particularly if Ziva and Tony were there), or even just questioning about what to expect from the crime scene.

But the silence? That meant they were mentally preparing for a battle.

Neither agent complained as Gibbs swerved around a particularly sharp corner before flooring it and speeding down the street, heading further and further out of town.

When the GPS suddenly alerted them that they'd reached their location, the Charger screeched to a stop, Gibbs almost immediately putting the car into _park_. All three of the agents climbed out of the car without hesitation, checking their weapons. After all, if they were going in to find kidnapped children, it was likely they'd probably have to use them at some point.

The sharp ring of Gibbs' phone cut through the silence, and he answered it as Tony and Ziva moved to the trunk to pull out their bulletproof vests. "Gibbs," he answered gruffly.

" _The kidnappers are Petty Officers Hartson, Harper, and Miller._ "

That caused Gibbs' blood to run cold. " _Miller_?" he ground out, causing Tony and Ziva's heads to snap towards him at the name. The Senior Supervisory Agent put the phone on speaker so that they could all listen in on the conversation.

" _Yeah, Janet Miller. She's Alice's aunt; Petty Officer Mary-Ann Miller's sister-in-law. All three women were part of a drug smuggling ring, but they didn't expect Parkson to stumble across what they were doing. Apparently, Miller holds some sort of vendetta against her sister-in-law for keeping her daughter away from her brother for so long, despite the fact that Alice goes to school here and doesn't exactly want to move to live with her dad._ "

"So we also have a personal vendetta tied in," Ziva sighed as she slipped her vest around her torso, tightening it so that it was securely on her chest.

" _Looks like it. Plus, Janet Miller would've had access to Mary-Ann's gun – whenever her husband comes home, the whole family gets together, so Janet is almost always at family meetings. According to Mary-Ann, there's usually mention of getting Mary-Ann and Alice to move in with him, though now I'm guessing it's to get her out of Janet's hair._ "

"What about the other two?" Tony asked as he finished securing his vest, moving to check if he had enough clips in the magazine. As soon as he did so, he took the phone off Gibbs so the older agent could put on his own vest.

" _Hartson and Harper have no ties to Miller, but apparently they were once close with Parkson. The three of them were brought up in the same area, all close friends as teens. Something must've happened when they all enlisted, but Parkson hasn't left behind any records about that._ "

"Harper mentioned that she hadn't spoken to Parkson recently – was that true?" Ziva asked.

" _Parkson didn't really associate with them, so I'm guessing that's right. It didn't make her innocent, though – she only said that she hadn't spoken to Parkson recently._ "

Tony pursed his lips. "She could've seen Parkson around multiple times. Either way, she's involved in the drug ring and probably the murder."

" _Definitely_."

Gibbs walked over and took the offered phone from Tony once he'd checked his vest and gun were ready. "Anything else important to right now?"

" _Abby has pretty much everything, Boss._ "

"Get down here, McGee. We're probably gonna need an extra set of hands."

" _Got it. See you, Boss._ "

The call ended, Gibbs flipping the phone shut and tucking it into his back pocket before the three agents made their way slowly towards the warehouse across the street.

As Alice had suggested, the area was pretty much abandoned. Old warehouses – not quite derelict but definitely not being used – surrounded what seemed to be an open space for parking vehicles; most likely trucks, if the size of the area was any indication. In front of the warehouse on the left, a blue van with tinted windows and no traceable plates sat. All three agents pulled out their guns and moved slowly towards it, Ziva and Tony placing themselves on either side of the back doors and counting down silently, with the female pulling open the door sharply. Tony scanned the inside of the back of the van, pulling out a torch to see into the dark space.

"This the van?" Tony asked quietly, looking over at Ziva.

Her eyes scanned the vehicle before she nodded. "It matches the description exactly," she responded, before glancing over at the large metal door not too far from where they stood. "That must be the entrance."

"DiNozzo, David, see if there are any other entrances," Gibbs commanded, looking over at the Senior Field Agent. Tony didn't even respond before moving to scan the perimeter of the building, moving to scan around the left side whilst Ziva moved to the right.

"I have found no other entrances," Ziva reported when she returned to Gibbs.

"One really large door on the other side of the building," Tony reported, "but it's too big to open manually, and seems too old to open quietly."

"They are most likely to use this door over here," Ziva explained, pointing to the door not too far from the van.

Gibbs nodded, his eyes glancing around. From what he could see, there weren't any easily accessible windows – nothing to climb through, no way to see into the building other than through the window in the door itself.

After a few moments of silence, DiNozzo finally spoke: "We're going in before McGee gets here, aren't we?"

Ziva raised an eyebrow as she looked over at him. "There is no way that he will be able to get here in time. He is at the Petty Officer's house; he is too far away." She glanced at Gibbs, directing her next phrase at him. "It will not be wise to wait, considering those children are in danger."

Gibs had already made his mind up. "DiNozzo, at the door. Watch to make sure no one gets out. David is with me."

"Got it, Boss."

"Yes, Gibbs."

* * *

The panic that rose in Andrew's chest threatened to spill out in the form of hot tears, his breathing quickening. He would do anything _in the world_ to keep his little sister safe, but from what Alice had told him, this information on the flash drive was incriminating evidence. They wanted to _destroy_ it; they wanted to make his mother's death worthless. The struggle to decide between letting his sister die and avenging his mother was almost too much to handle.

His mind was made up as soon as that safety completely clicked off.

"I'll tell you!" he blurted, eyes wide and limbs straining against the bonds. "I'll tell you, I swear! Please don't hurt her!"

Janet stared at him for a few moments, gauging as to whether he was telling the truth or not, before clicking the safety back on and lowering the gun. Jessica continued to whimper on the floor, curled up on the concrete.

Within a few moments, though, a knife was being held against the side of his neck by the blonde woman from earlier, who had a cold smile on her face.

"Talk or your sister will watch you bleed out in front of her, boy."


	20. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I have another chapter here for you to read! I hope you enjoy it! This may be the last one for a little while, since I have exams coming up in a couple of months and need to seriously get my head down for those, but once those are done I've finished my first year at uni, so I'll be a whole lot more free (hopefully)!
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

_Janet stared at him for a few moments, gauging as to whether he was telling the truth or not, before clicking the safety back on and lowering the gun. Jessica continued to whimper on the floor, curled up on the concrete._

_Within a few moments, though, a knife was being held against the side of his neck by the blonde woman from earlier, who had a cold smile on her face._

" _Talk, or your sister will watch you bleed out in front of her, boy."_

Andrew gulped slightly at the feeling of the cold blade tip against the side of his neck. Part of him knew that if he didn't give them the information, there was no way they'd cut at his neck. He'd googled enough rubbish to know that bleeding out at the neck would be too quick, so if they really wanted him to bleed out, they'd cut somewhere else.

Like the stomach. A stab to the stomach would cause him to bleed out if he didn't get medical attention on time, right?

_What a morbid thought_ , he found himself thinking as he stared at the woman. He took a sharp breath in when he felt the tip dig in a little bit, shutting his eyes tightly.

"Okay, okay, I'll spill," he finally said, nearly sobbing with relief when he felt the knife being moved away from his throat. Until the woman was stood in front of him, an intimidating look on her face.

"You better start talking, Andrew."

The teen took a deep breath, glancing past the woman to see Alice watching him with wide, worried eyes. Whilst part of him was glad that she was worrying over him so much, he wished she didn't have to see him in this kind of situation.

"L-last time I had it, it was at home…" That wasn't exactly a lie, technically. Last time he'd had it, had been at Gibbs' place, because that was where Gibbs had found it before taking it in as evidence. And the home part… well, the Gibbs residence had pretty much become a home to him. Granted he hadn't been there for long, but he was starting to feel at home there.

Not that he was going to tell these women that.

From the way the blonde in front of him bristled, he could tell that whatever he'd said had been the wrong answer.

The backhand he received to his face only solidified that thought.

Andrew let out a small whimper as he felt the blood rush to his right cheek, a bruise beginning to form. Licking his lips, he wasn't surprised to be met with the slightly metallic taste of blood.

His face was gripped tightly, his head turned to look directly at the blonde. Any hint of mirth and amusement that had been in her eyes earlier was now gone, replaced with cold anger.

"We _checked_ your house, Andrew. Why do you think we went there in the first place?" she asked icily, squeezing his jaw more harshly in her grip. "I suggest you stop lying to me, boy."

"I'm not!" he protested, yelping when he felt nails beginning to dig into his skin. "I-I promise, I swear!"

"We found _nothing_ there!" The nails dug in so hard that they were almost drawing blood. "You better tell us where the flash drive is, boy…"

* * *

It wasn't until Gibbs and Ziva had situated themselves by the door, weapons drawn and ready to go, that anyone spoke again. It was Tony who opened his mouth, his weapon drawn but the safety still on as his gun hung by his side.

"I'll call in when McGee gets here," he told Gibbs, his eyes glancing around to see if there were any signs of the other agent arriving.

"Hopefully it will be before everything has happened," Ziva muttered. "An extra gun to depend upon will be nice."

"What about your ankle holster?"

"It is not the same as having a separate gunman, Tony."

"You might as well be two gunmen with the way you shoot with both the guns in your hands…" Tony trailed off at the look Gibbs was giving him. "I'll stay by the door and keep an eye out for McGee."

Ziva ejected her magazine and checked it before pushing it back into the gun. "I am ready to go in."

Gibbs nodded, giving DiNozzo a single nod as the door was opened quietly and the two agents snuck into the building.

The room they walked into was very large, much like what Alice had described on the phone to them earlier – after all, the place just _screamed_ abandoned warehouse. The two edged further into the large room, heading for the nearest pile of abandoned crates to hide behind. Tony had mostly closed the door behind them to reduce the amount of light being let in (and reduce suspicion), but it seemed as if none of those in the building had noticed them. Gibbs and Ziva had both crouched down behind the crates, and Ziva glanced around to have a look at the situation.

Two chairs were placed in the centre of the large room, facing each other, and there was a figure in each one – it wasn't difficult to guess that the figures were Andrew and Alice. Between the two figures, a smaller figure lay on the ground, and the red hair gave away the fact that it was the third child that had previously unaccounted for – Jessica.

The three women – the suspects – were dotted around the children. Petty Officer Harper was the one Ziva recognised straight away, and she seemed to be hovering around Alice, watching the teens cautiously. Another was standing near Jessica, holding what seemed to be a gun, though she wasn't pointing it at anyone. No, the only threatening one seemed to be the blonde standing right next to Andrew, holding a blade near his neck.

The female agent ducked back behind the crate, turning to Gibbs. "Three Petty Officers – one of them is Harper, the other two must be Miller and Hartson."

The male gave a single nod. "How many weapons?"

"Two from what I can see. A knife and a gun."

Gibbs flicked the safety off his gun. "Let's go."

* * *

Andrew tried to squirm underneath her grip, but any movements just made everything worse. "Y-you're hurting me!"

"I'll stop when you give me what I want."

He gulped, clenching his fists and gritting his teeth, before glaring at the woman. "I've given it to you!" His glare disappeared as soon as he felt the knife tip digging into his skin. "I-I have! I have!"

The knife twisted slightly against his neck. "Liar."

"No!" More pressure. "No…" he whimpered quietly.

"There was nothing at the house, _boy_ ," the woman with the gun sneered, glaring at Andrew. "We searched through every single bit of it—"

"And boy was it difficult getting past all that crime scene tape," the blonde said with a smirk.

"—and we found _nothing_. Nothing of what your mother left behind! No files, no documents, and _no flash drive_!"

The teen pursed his lips tightly. He knew his life depended on whatever he said next, but he didn't want to give it up. He didn't want to say anything.

But then, his sister would be destroyed or scarred for life if a misstep ended in some sort of injury, either to him or to her. He… he had no choice.

"I… I have no idea where Gibbs put it," he mumbled. "He… he took it from me, and he was getting into the drive and—" He was cut off by a strong backhand to the face, tears forming in his eyes.

"You foolish boy." The blonde leant back, breathing deeply for a few moments, before leaning back towards him quickly and grabbing his neck, squeezing lightly – not so much as to suffocate him, but enough to shock him into submission. "Until I get that flash drive and get everything that's on it, unmodified and all present, you will not be leaving this building. You will only leave this chair when we let you, and you _will not_ have contact with anyone not in here. Understood?" Andrew's lack of response caused her to squeeze tighter. " _Understood_?"

When he didn't respond again, the dark-haired female smirked slightly. "I think he's a little hard of hearing, Kels. He's going to need a little bit of… persuasion."

"I don't think he'll be needing any of that."

Everyone's heads turned towards the source of the voice, looks of panic appearing on the faces of the three women currently holding the children captive. Tears of relief began flowing down Jessica and Alice's faces, whereas Andrew held himself impossibly still as the knife remained at his throat, the teen not knowing how exactly the blonde woman would react.

"NCIS, drop your weapons!" Ziva commanded as she approached slowly, her gun raised and pointing at the woman with the gun. Gibbs had his gun pointed at the woman with the knife.

No one moved until they heard a scuffing of feet, and Harper was seen scampering towards what looked like a control panel for the large warehouse door. At the same time, the two with weapons began to move. The one with the gun raised it quickly and aimed it at the closest agent – Ziva – and fired, clipping her on the shoulder and sending her stumbling back. Following shots were fired at the two agents, forcing them to jump back and take shelter behind the crates. At the same time, she pulled Jessica her feet and shoved her in the direction that Harper had headed. At the same time, the blonde moved to free Alice from her bonds, if only to get her to follow the little girl and Harper out.

Gibbs was the one to poke his head around the box and begin shooting back, aiming for the ground by her feet as warning shots.

Ziva clutched her shoulder tightly, stemming the bleeding as much as she could. "Tony! Harper is heading towards the other entrance!" she called back towards the door, only hearing the slam of the door in response as Tony headed for the other door.

* * *

As soon as Ziva had called back to him, Tony turned and began to sprint around the building to where he'd seen the large door for vehicle entry. As he reached the last corner before the door he slowed to a stop, trying to slow down his breathing as he stood there, gun out. Leaning out slowly, he peered around the corner, only to see that the door was slowly beginning to open. He smiled slightly, glad that the building was old and the technology wasn't as up-to-date as other buildings were.

As the door reached what he assumed to be about thigh-height, Tony moved out from around the side of the building, slowly making his way towards the slowly opening door. Beneath the door, he saw two pairs of feet – one pair clearly belonging to a child, if the small white and blue sneakers were any indication, and the other belonging to an adult that Tony assumed was Petty Officer Harper. Taking a stance not too far from the door, he raised his gun and waited for the door to open.

When the door had been opened wide enough to reveal the small redheaded girl, Tony mentally gave a sigh of relief – even if she looked hurt and scared, she was going to be safe. Especially if this went his way. Which it would – he had no doubt about it.

Hearing the extra set of footsteps worried him slightly, but he didn't let that bother him until the door was opened wide enough to reveal that the other set of footsteps had belonged to the blonde teen that had been taken along with Andrew…

And Petty Officer Harper was standing there weapon-less, hoping to escape without a problem.

Tony simply smirked as he held up the weapon, pointing it at the woman.

"NCIS, stop right there, Petty Officer Harper."

The dark-haired woman froze where she stood, her eyes wide, before she seemed to sigh with what seemed like defeat.

Tony took a step towards her, pulling handcuffs out of his back pocket. "Turn around and put your hands behind your head." As soon as he got close enough, he lowered the gun and took the woman's hands, pushing them down so that he could handcuff them. "You're under arrest, Petty Officer." He leant in close. "I guess those dealings weren't all that if you still got caught, eh?" he taunted, before turning towards the two girls.

Alice looked relieved, her shoulders slumped as she rubbed her sore wrists. Jessica, on the other hand, was trembling, tears streaming down her cheeks. Leaving the Petty Officer (and trusting her to not run away), Tony moved to kneel down beside Jessica, giving her enough space but making eye-contact.

"You're safe now, Jessica," he told the little girl softly, offering her a gentle smile. Spotting her lower lip tremble, the agent tentatively opened his arms to her, almost smiling with relief when she made her way towards him (though it was cautiously) and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face into the side of it and beginning to sob softly. At the sounds of gunshots from inside, Tony felt every flinch against him and held her more tightly, looking up at Alice and offering her a gentle smile.

"Jessica, I'm going to pick you up and take you back to the car, okay?" Tony said softly, slowly beginning to stand with her in his arms when he felt her nod against his neck. Once he stood, he grabbed the Petty Officer's arm, squeezing tightly and sending her a short glare before leading her and Alice back around the building to the front.

* * *

As soon as Alice had been released, she was shoved in the same direction that Jessica had, and the blonde began to work on Andrew, who immediately began to struggle against the woman.

Gibbs' narrowed his eyes before moving his aim upwards, hitting the shooter in the shoulder and knocking her down, forcing her to drop her weapon as she screamed in pain. The agent moved from behind the crates, approaching the three left in the middle of the large room. Fortunately, the shooter was too busy attempting to stem the bleeding from her shoulder to pick up her gun and attempt to shoot using her other hand.

Gibbs aimed his gun at the woman freeing Andrew, stepping towards her. "Step away from the kid and put your hands up."

The woman glanced over her shoulder at the gun and narrowed her eyes at Gibbs, before going back to trying to free the teenage boy. The way in which he was squirming, however, prevented her from doing so easily, and eventually she gave up, moving quickly to hold her knife against Andrew's throat as she began to drag the chair away.

Gibbs narrowed his eyes as the woman placed the teen partially between him and herself. It would be hard to get her and keep her alive for questioning without getting Andrew. Hard, but not impossible.

"I said step away from the kid, Hartson."

The woman narrowed her eyes at Gibbs. "Make me," she sneered, before continuing to pull the teen along.

Andrew struggled in the seat, forcing Hartson to stop and huff, glaring down at the teen. She then looked up at Gibbs.

"Let me go or I'll kill him."

Gibbs stared at her, aiming his gun at her. "You hurt him, I'll shoot you."

"I don't have a gun. You could be killing an innocent Naval Officer."

"You have a knife, and you're holding it against the neck of a kid."

The woman made a show of looking down at her hand, before back up at Gibbs with mock-surprise on her face. "Why, so I am!" The surprise disappeared quickly. "Let me go."

"Not until you release the kid."

She grit her teeth, glancing between Gibbs and Andrew, before huffing in what seemed like defeat. "Fine. You want the kid so bad? I don't have any more use for him anyway."

Looking back on it, Gibbs should've known that she wouldn't let the boy go easily.

It would've made it a whole lot less surprising when she plunged the knife in her hand into the side of his stomach, twisting a little and relishing in the boy's scream before pulling the weapon out and dropping it to the floor. The surprise didn't stop him from putting two bullets in her, though – one in her side, the other in her stomach – as she moved to dive for the gun that lay beside her partner.

Gibbs didn't hesitate to pull his phone out and call for an ambulance as he raced towards the teen, moving to stem the bleeding. "Andrew? Andrew!" He lifted the teen's head to meet pained and unfocused eyes, and he tapped the boy's cheeks lightly. "Stay awake for me, okay? You gotta stay awake for me, Andrew."

"Y-yeah," Andrew rasped, his eyes wide as he slumped forward in the seat, colour draining from his face. Though, as hard as he tried, he couldn't help it when his eyelids became heavy and dropped shut.


	21. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Here's the next chapter for you! Sorry that it took a little longer than I'd expected it to - I've had a fair bit going on recently, with regards to the fact that it's pretty much the end of the academic year, but it's nearly at a close so I thought I'd finish this and give it to you guys! I hope you enjoy it!

Upon reaching the front of the building, Tony was slightly relieved to spot McGee speeding into the parking lot of the warehouse area, screeching to a stop not too far from the van they'd put a BOLO on. The Special Agent jumped out of the vehicle and made his way over to Tony and the girls, sending the more senior agent a nod before narrowing his eyes at the Petty Officer.

"Is this Harper?" he asked, though he didn't need to look at Tony to know there was a nod of affirmation.

"The other two are inside with Gibbs and—"

The sound of loud sirens cut Tony off, and the group looked towards the entrance to the warehouse area to see flashing lights and…

Ambulances.

Tony's face paled slightly as he handed the Petty Officer over to McGee. "Get her in the car."

McGee simply nodded as he moved to seat her in the back of his car, ensuring there was no way she could escape without them realising, before heading back over to Tony and the children. Deciding to focus on Alice (whose eyes were transfixed on the ambulances heading towards them), the agent moved to stand towards her.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her gently.

"Worried," she muttered quietly, staring at the emergency vehicles for a few moments before turning her head to look at McGee. "Worried… because Andy's still in there…"

The vehicles screeched to a stop and their occupants spilled out, racing towards the building and heading straight inside with stretchers and various pieces of first aid equipment. McGee and Tony headed towards the younger agent's car and sat the two girls on the front bonnet, not surprised at all when a couple of paramedics approached to check up on the girls.

Tony had to admit, he was a little surprised when Jessica clutched to him tightly as the paramedic approached her, though he was glad that he managed to calm her down at least a little to allow her to be checked up on.

When the first set of paramedics emerged from the building, Tony breathed a sigh of relief to see Ziva walk out of the building, a bandage wrapped around her upper arm. Honestly, with all of the gunshots that had gone on, he was hoping that was the worst of it – a simple graze from a bullet, she told him. Bled a lot, and stung like heck, but not too serious.

That was when the chaos started.

Stretchers began to rush out of the building one by one, the paramedics attending to the patients as they sped along. On the first two stretchers, Tony recognised the injured from the suspect photos McGee had shown. The blood and the gas masks on their faces suggested injury – Tony was guessing Gibbs had something to do with those. Part of him was glad that Gibbs had at least incapacitated those two – still alive to talk but not strong enough to run away. Perfect for interrogation.

It was the last stretcher that emerged which caused him to hold his breath, his eyes wide.

Because there was no mistaking the teen lying on the stretcher, a gas mask on his face as paramedics rushed him into an ambulance, hands pressing down a piece of cloth on his stomach.

Alice was the first to move, trying to push past the agents as Jessica began to sob loudly. If Tony hadn't realised what she was doing quickly enough, he was pretty certain she would've pushed past and gone straight over to him.

She struggled in his grip as she continued to try and get to Andrew. "Let me—let me go!" she screamed.

Tony kept his grip firm. "Alice, Alice! You going over and disrupting won't do anything to help Andrew!" As she continued to struggle, Tony pulled her close, holding her tightly against him to try and stop her from struggling. "Andrew needs to get to hospital, Alice."

"And I need to go with him!" she protested, still trying to get Tony to release her. The Senior Field Agent looked to Ziva for help, who was working with McGee to try and calm down the startled Jessica. Upon seeing his look, she gave a small sigh, before moving so that she was in Alice's line of sight.

"Alice… please listen to me," she started softly, waiting until the girl was looking at her before speaking. "Andrew is in good hands. He needs to be rushed to the hospital as quickly as possible to ensure that he remains alive and well, and deep down I know that this is something you also know." Reaching out and placing a gentle hand on the teen's shoulder, she gave Alice a pointed look. "He will be okay, but you must let him go to the hospital first."

Slowly but surely, Alice stopped struggling, and once he was sure it would be okay, Tony let her go, stretching out his arms from where he'd held her tightly enough to stop her from running off. Instead, the teenaged girl ended up in Ziva's arms, resting her head on Ziva's shoulder as they watched the ambulances rush off, Gibbs approaching the others by the car.

"Is he going to be okay?" Alice blurted out as soon as she deemed he was within speaking distance, but he focused his attention on his agents.

"DiNozzo, McGee, get our _suspect_ ," he sent a cold glare at the woman still in the car, "to interrogation. We need as much information from her as we can get, considering our other two sources are currently incapacitated. David," he turned to the female agent, "bring the girls. You're coming with me."

"Where are we going?" Alice demanded, not moving from Ziva's embrace. When Gibbs could see that she wasn't budging until he told her, he glanced towards Jessica before back at the teen.

"The hospital."

* * *

" _BP is 100 over 70 and dropping."_

" _Bleeding is stemmed for now, but we don't know how much damage has been done."_

" _Breathing is regular."_

" _He's responding to pain."_

" _Get him into CT now."_

…

" _CT shows a fair bit of bleeding."_

" _Prep OR2 now."_

" _Get him prepped!"_

…

" _Is he stable?"_

" _Seems like it."_

" _Not too much damage… he'll be okay…"_

…

The first proper thing Andrew could remember was the soft beeping of a monitor somewhere nearby. Then it was the beeping speeding up at around the same time he registered the pain in his left side, right near his navel. Instead of a scream, all that he managed to let out was a pained grunt as he heard the door open and someone come rushing into the room. The beeping began to slow as he felt the pain begin to subside, and slowly he opened his eyes, meeting a pair of what looked like steel grey eyes on a freckled face.

The person smiled down at him. "Mr Parkson, you're awake."

The teen simply blinked up at the person as they began to deal with the monitor, pressing all sorts of buttons and taking different measurements before they turned back to him. If Andrew had been lucid enough right then, he would've realised that the person was a guy – a nurse who had heard what was happening as he'd passed and had rushed in right away to check up on him.

"Don't worry – I'll make sure your doctor knows you're up so that she can come and take a look at you, alright?" He sent Andrew a smile. "You probably want that tube out of your throat, right? So that you can breathe and eat on your own… well, maybe not eat on your own quite yet, but definitely breathe." He turned to head towards the door. "I'll be right back, Mr Parkson."

Andrew didn't register that the doctor had arrived until he heard murmuring beside the bed, which caused him to open his eyes. He wasn't sure whether to feel surprised or anxious that he saw the doctor standing there with Gibbs and someone he thought was Jerome, his social worker.

Brand new social worker. Because, you know, he hadn't needed one before.

Letting out a small grunt, his eyebrows rose when everyone turned to face him. The doctor smiled.

"Andrew Parkson! It seems you are awake after all."

He just blinked at her.

"How about we get that breathing tube out of your throat and hook you up to some oxygen in a less invasive way, eh? Just to make it easier on you." Gibbs and Jerome moved to the far side of the room, closer to the door, as the doctor moved towards him, the nurse that Andrew vaguely remembered from earlier following. He was startled when he slowly felt himself being lowered flat onto the bed, but calmed down at the doctor explained what she was doing.

"Nurse Whittaker and I are just going to remove your breathing tube, alright Andrew? It might hurt a little bit, since it's going to scratch your throat a bit, but you're going to be just fine. Afterwards we'll put in the nasal tubes just to give you that extra little bit of support until you're completely recuperated, alright?"

She was right when she said it was going to hurt, and Andrew was almost tempted to start thrashing about on the bed as they pulled it out. But it was at that moment when logic started returning to him and he realised that doing that might not be the best idea for his health.

As soon as the tube was out, he took a gasp of air, wincing when he realised his throat was scratchy and dry. The doctor smiled slightly at him.

"Try not to talk for a little while, and let that throat of yours get back the way it used to. It'll take a little while, and it'll be sore, but it's better for you, alright?"

The teen nodded, furrowing his brow slightly as the doctor turned towards Gibbs as Jerome.

"You can stay for a little while, maybe keep him company and talk to him for a bit, but he needs rest. And _do not_ let him speak."

The two men simply nodded as she left the room, before turning to the teen on the bed. The teen who looked pale and almost sickly, and was fiddling with the bedsheets with a frown on his face. When Andrew looked up, Gibbs could see the questioning look in his eyes. The Federal Agent sent a slightly raised eyebrow towards the social worker standing a step or so behind him. The worker simply shrugged, and Gibbs turned back to the teen.

"You wanna know how bad?" the agent finally asked as he moved closer to the bed, his hands in his pockets. When he realised Andrew couldn't exactly speak (or nod for fear of hurting himself), Gibbs added, "blink twice for yes, once for no."

Two blinks.

Gibbs took a deep breath before beginning to explain, starting from the top. "You got a concussion, not a bad one. Pretty mild. Came with the bump on your head. Got some bruising on your wrists and ankles from the handcuffs and bindings, and bruises and scratches as well…" Gibbs had to pause there to stop his anger from flaring at the memory of the hand-shaped bruise that marred young Jessica's face.

Andrew stared at him, waiting for him to continue. It was clear that there was more.

"…and a fair bit of blood loss." When the teen's eyebrows rose in what Gibbs assumed was shock, he continued. "You got stabbed in the stomach, and there was a fair bit of bleeding, but not as much damage was done as originally thought. Still gonna take you a while to recover from it, though."

He seemed to deflate a little at that, his gaze moving from Gibbs to the floor.

Jerome took this as his cue to speak up. "Because of your extensive injuries," he started, noticing how Andrew's eyes moved quickly to focus on him as soon as he spoke, "and the fact that you technically can't be moved out of witness protection until the case is completely closed, which I've been told won't happen until after the interrogations," he glanced at Gibbs, "means that you're going to have to stay at the Gibbs residence for a good while."

Andrew's eyebrows shot up, his eyes widening as they focused on Gibbs. Gibbs who has a slight smile on his face at the shock on the teen's face.

"What, you think I'm kidding about this?" Gibbs asked, chuckling lightly at the fact that Andrew didn't even blink at him. "We'll take care of you when you get home, get you up and running again. That good with you, Andrew?"

The two blinks that followed were so quick that the two men almost missed them.

"I guess he is," Jerome said with a chuckle. He grinned at the smile that broke out on Andrew's face, before sighing. "Well, I guess I should check up on your sister, see if she's okay with it."

The smile on Andrew's face fell at the mention of his sister, and Jerome sent him a sympathetic smile.

"How about I talk to the nurse about letting your sister stay in here with you?" he suggested. "She should be fine with it. And she's okay too – Special Agent Gibbs can give you all the details."

Gibbs shot the social worker a look as he left the room, shaking his head slightly as he turned back to see Andrew with a questioning look on his face. He sighed.

"Alright, alright, I tell you…"

* * *

It was pretty late by the time the nurse allowed Andrew to have visitors other than Gibbs and his social worker, Jerome.

And by late, it was nearing one in the morning and Andrew's eyes were already drooping closed from the exhaustion of having to keep them open following a surgery. He hadn't eaten anything, and hadn't had anything to drink other than some water to soothe his throat. Plus, his bedtime was usually around 10 p.m., and even though he often woke up to get a glass of water in the middle of the night and chat with Gibbs for an hour or so, staying up this late wasn't something his body was used to.

The gentle gasp of, "Andy," caused his eyes to open sharply, his gaze landing on the two figures being escorted through the door. He smiled when he recognised the little redheaded sister of his, followed by his blonde best friend, Alice.

Momentarily ignoring the doctor's earlier piece of advice to "not speak", he managed a quiet, "Hey," before stopping at the feeling of slight pain in his throat. He really hoped these two weren't expecting him to talk a lot.

Fortunately, the vibe he got from his sister didn't commune that at all, shown by the fact that she immediately climbed into the bed with him, curling up on the side that he hadn't been stabbed on. Moving his arm, he gave her more space to curl up against him, smiling as she rested her head on his chest and soon began to breathe softly, indicating that she'd dozed off.

Alice, on the other hand, pulled up a seat beside the bed, on the opposite side to Jessica, and sat down, resting her forearms on the bed. She smiled up gently at him. "How are you feeling?" she asked him quietly, her eyes glancing over at the younger girl to see if she'd accidentally woken her up. The lack of shifting meant that she hadn't done so.

Andrew raised the arm around his sister slightly, giving the girl a thumbs-up. Alice's eyebrows just rose at his gesture.

"Can't you talk?"

The thumbs down she got in response answered her question.

"Why not?"

He used the arm closest to Alice to point at his throat.

"Does it hurt?"

Another thumbs-up.

"Oh." She hesitated for a moment, glancing at the bruises on his wrists before shifting her own to compare with his. For a moment she forgot exactly where she was, and why she was there – to check up on him. When she remembered, her eyes snapped back up to his, startling him slightly.

"How are you feeling, though?" she asked him gently. All she received was a wavy thumb hovering somewhere in between okay and not so great, which caused one side of her mouth to quirk up into a slight smile. At least he was being honest with her.

She didn't exactly expect him to gesture to her, though.

"Me?" She pursed her lips. "I guess… I guess I'm okay? I mean…" She looked down at her wrists. "These'll take a little while to heal, and my head kinda hurts, but otherwise I guess I'm okay. Ish." The slight quirk of his lips made her actually smile, and she looked won at their hands again. "I'm… I'm glad you're alive, though. You had us worried…"

The smile melted off his face at that, and he looked down at his little sister sleeping peacefully beside him. The hand-shaped bruise on her cheek that had once been an angry red was now an ugly purple, and he carefully brushed some stray hairs from her cheek, careful not to wake her. Other than that, she only had scratches on her arms and legs, which Andrew was grateful for. He would've been livid if his sister had been hurt anymore. As it was, he was prepared to fight someone because of how hurt his sister was.

Then again, he was also stuck in bed right then, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't be fighting anyone for a while.

Alice read the apologetic and worried expression on his face loud and clear, and placed a gentle hand on his own. He looked up at her with wide eyes.

"It's okay, Andy," she told him softly, a gentle smile on her face. He returned the hesitant smile with one of his own, before a yawn wiped it off his face. Alice chuckled slightly, rubbing the back of his hand gently. "Looks like you need sleep." The look he gave her just made her grin even wider. "What? You need your sleep. So I'm gonna head off and let you guys sleep, okay?"

As she got up to leave, he grabbed her hand, pulling her back down. Her eyebrows raised at the slightly pleading look on his face.

"…Okay, I'll stay." She moved closer to the bed. "But I'm not sleeping on those seats, so you guys better budge for me."

The male shifted a little, bringing his sister closer to him so that she didn't fall off the bed as Alice climbed in beside him and curled up closely, trying not to fall off the bed herself. When she looked up and realised Andrew was looking up at the ceiling, fighting off what was probably a blush, she poked him in the stomach, forcing a surprised gasp out of him.

"Go to sleep, Andy."

He pulled a face at her, making her giggle as he closed his eyes and allowed his breathing to slow, drifting off to sleep.


	22. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Yeah, I know - it's only been a couple of weeks since my last update! I'm proud of me too! I've just finished my first year at university, so I've got a whole lot more free time and motivation to write! My aim is to finish this rewrite this summer so I can get back to writing the rest of this series and some of my other stories.
> 
> This chapter kinda feels more like a filler to me, and it's more Andrew-centric, but I hope you enjoy it!

Andrew took a deep breath as he looked at himself in the mirror, running a hand over the faded bruise on his face as he gave himself a once-over.

Pretty much the day after they'd been apprehended, all three women had been interrogated (Tony wasn't one for late night interrogations, and Gibbs had been nice enough to let them interrogate at 9 a.m. sharp instead of in the middle of the night). Macy Harper hadn't received any injuries, so she had been the first to be interrogated, followed shortly by Janet Miller who had only received a bullet to the shoulder. Kelly Hartson had been a little more difficult to get a hold of – considering her injuries were to her stomach and not her shoulder, her surgery had been more extensive and doctors had been more reluctant to let the agents interrogate her.

Then again, with the evidence the other two provided, they hadn't really needed to interrogate her.

Dishonourable discharge and arrest soon followed, all three women imprisoned for murder (in Hartson and Miller's cases) and accessory to murder (in Harper's case). Of course, Hartson needed to recover before she could go behind bars officially, but she was going to jail no matter what.

And with those arrests came the end of Andrew and Jessica's witness protection. They had no real need to stay at the Gibbs residence, despite how reluctant they were to leave. The social worker was (kindly) nice enough to turn a blind eye to the fact that the case was closed for a week, claiming that the children were finally being allowed time to grieve.

As Andrew's hand drifted down from the fading bruise to the tie knot at his neck, he brought his other hand up to tighten it slightly, not wanting it to look out of place. This was it, the climax of his and his sister's "grieving period". Once this was done, there was no going back. There was no coming back. His parents… they would be officially gone. For good.

He huffed as his hands tightened around his tie at that thought, scrunching it up messily in his hands. No, that looked disgusting – he had to look good. For them. They wouldn't want his tie to be skewed or scrunched up at all. It had to be neat, straight, flat.

Except every time he tried to straighten the tie, it went all wonky and scrunched up again. Growling in frustration, he took in a deep breath through his nose before turning towards the bedroom door, opening it and heading down the stairs. If the tie didn't look right, Gibbs could deal with it.

Descending the stairs and approaching the living room, Andrew wasn't surprised to find his little sister sat by the coffee table, dressed in all black and leaning on the table as she drew in what looked like a sketch book. It was a "drawing journal", as their psychiatrist called it. For Jessica to draw out her feelings rather than write them out, to help her clear her head. Andrew had tried to dismiss the idea of owning a journal, but he was pretty sure that was what Gibbs had left on the bedside table in his room.

Sticking his hands in his pocket, he slowly approached the table. "What're you drawing?" he asked quietly, moving to sit on the opposite side of the table form her. He wasn't surprised when she shifted the book so that he couldn't see it – she was being a whole lot more secretive with it than he'd originally expected.

"Drawin'," she mumbled, not looking up from what she was doing. When she realised her brother wasn't moving, her eyes shifted up to glance at him. "Go away."

Andrew blinked. That had to be… the _closest_ to the Jessica he could remember since everything happened.

"What if I don't want to?" he countered.

He almost smirked at the incredulous look she gave him.

Almost, because at that moment there was a knock on the front door. After a brief pause, Gibbs descended the stairs, shrugging on his suit jacket more comfortably. Opening the door, he wasn't surprised to find Petty Officer Eleanor Anderson stood there in her military uniform, cap tucked beneath her arm. She gave Gibbs a nod as he stepped aside to let her in, watching her walk into the living room as he shut the door.

At the new person in the living room, Andrew stood, partially in front of his little sister. Jessica hurriedly shut the book in front of her, pulling it closer protectively. The Petty Officer glanced between the two children, before looking back at Gibbs, hoping he'd diffuse whatever situation was arising.

Gibbs stepped into the front room, about to speak when he noticed the state of Andrew's tie and sighed, beckoning the teen closer.

The male hesitated, before stepping towards Gibbs, lifting his chin a little as the older man began to tighten his tie and set it properly against his collar. As Gibbs' fingers moved, Andrew's eyes moved to look over at the Petty Officer, who was watching them curiously.

"Who's she?" he asked bluntly.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at that, silently warning Andrew about being rude.

"…Sir," the teen added on in an effort to placate Gibbs.

"This is Petty Officer Eleanor Anderson," the agent explained. "She worked with your mother."

"And I'm family," the woman added quickly in an effort to comfort the children – considering they had only recently had pretty scarring experiences with individuals their mother had worked with. "I'm your mom's cousin."

Andrew simply raised an eyebrow at her explanation, not quite sure whether to believe it considering he'd never really met the woman before.

"Distant cousin," she corrected, giving him a slight smile, before turning her gaze to Jessica, who shrunk back a little. "I've heard a lot about you two."

"We haven't heard anything about you," Andrew countered, moving away from Gibbs when the older man was done with fixing up his tie.

The Petty Officer did well to hide the disappointment she felt at that statement. "Well, I suppose now you'll have time to know about me as well."

Andrew pursed his lips at that. "Oh, and why now?"

Before the Petty Officer could turn to the teen and give Andrew what Gibbs assumed would be a very witty comment, the senior supervisory agent cleared his throat, giving Andrew a stern look.

"You and your sister will be going with Petty Officer Anderson," he explained, ignoring how Andrew opened his mouth to protest. "I'll follow – I gotta pick up the others. Behave, _please_." He looked at Andrew as he spoke, noticing the defiant look on the boy's face. "I'll meet you both there, alright?"

"Are we going now?" Jessica asked quietly, still holding the journal against her chest. At the affirmative nod Gibbs gave, she stood and made her way over to where her brother stood, her hand slipping up and sliding into his. He gripped it softly.

"The car is outside," the Petty Officer informed the children with what she hoped was a soft smile, though the fact that it wasn't returned didn't reassure her of the fact. Stepping aside, she watched as they passed her and headed out towards the front door. She turned and gave Gibbs a sigh. "Is this really a good idea?"

The agent simply shrugged. "Not my idea. Ask their psychologist."

* * *

The weather was dull on that day in late March. It wasn't wet, but the grey clouds above threatened rainfall – maybe not dark enough to threaten heavy rainfall, but the light, irritating drizzle-like rain that got you wet but not quickly enough to soak you right through.

At least, that was what Andrew thought as he stood on the grass, watching as the two covered caskets were carried to their destination. His lips were pursed as he watched with what seemed like an emotionless expression; a stark contrast to the tears that were spilling down his little sister's cheeks as she sniffled.

The whole ordeal was a blur to him – the setting down of the caskets, the procedures carried out to honour his parents, the removal of the flags and (eventually) their burial. All he remembered was receiving a folded flag; a folded flag to remind him of what his parents had done. What they had died for. He wasn't quite sure whether he really wanted to remember it, but it seemed as if he didn't have a choice, carrying one flag as his sister carried the other.

The walk away from the cemetery, with the flag in his arms, felt as if he was moving in a trance. It was done, it was over. He vaguely remembered spotting Gibbs there in his dark attire, standing with the other agents – Tony, Ziva, McGee. All four looked solemn as they watched the funeral continue to the end, their eyes lingering on the children as they were led back to Petty Officer Anderson's vehicle to be taken back to the Gibbs residence.

Andrew stared out of the window as the car made its way through the streets, the clouds finally opening up and letting some of that bleak drizzle-like rain through. Eleanor glanced in the rear-view mirror to see Andrew staring out of the window and Jessica leaning against him, eyes closed as she dozed lightly.

"You alright?" she asked casually as her eyes moved back to focusing on the road ahead of her.

Andrew's simple answer of, "No," ended the conversation there and then.

Reaching the Gibbs residence, Andrew didn't even say anything before carefully shaking his sister awake and climbing out of the car, leading her into the house. Gibbs had left his door unlocked, fortunately, which allowed Andrew to lead his sister into the house and up to her temporary room without waiting for Eleanor to follow.

Setting her flag down on her bedside table, he carefully helped her to change out of what she was wearing into something more comfortable. It didn't take him long to get her into a t-shirt and sweatpants that fit and help her lay down on the bed to sleep – it wasn't that late, but he got the feeling that she needed a nap.

Once she lay on the bed, he hesitated at the door, listening to her breathe softly. Memories of watching his parents do the exact same thing when he was falling sleep flitted through his mind, and his breath hitched, his fingers closing more tightly around his flag. Shutting his sister's room door, he moved over to his own room, shutting the door behind him and setting the folded flag on his desk.

It took him all of five seconds to resort to picking up his lamp and screaming as he threw it, the glass shattering loudly as soon as it hit the wall. He felt the scream rip from his throat more than he heard it, his throat going sore and raw. It was a good twenty minutes later that he realised that it hadn't only been the lamp that he'd thrown in his fit of rage, but also a glass (which still had some water in it), a couple of books, and his mirror after he'd punched it a couple of times. He stood amidst the rubble, staring down at his bloody fists. Feeling something trickle down his cheek, he instinctively brought his hand up to rub it away, accidentally smearing some blood on his cheeks.

When there was a knock on the door, the teen sniffed. "What?" he muttered, his throat hurting too much to speak any louder.

The door opened gently, revealing Gibbs casually leaning on Andrew's doorframe. The man didn't even appear fazed at all of the glass and paper on the floor – instead he had his gaze focused on the ruffled teen standing in the middle of it all. He hadn't changed out of his formalwear (and fortunately he still had his shoes on) and with the blood on his fists and smeared on his cheeks, he looked as if he'd been in a fight of some sort.

"You hungry?" he asked.

Andrew hesitated for a moment, before nodding, sniffing a little.

Gibbs nodded, moving off the doorframe. "Alright then. Let's get you cleaned up first."

Andrew nodded, shuffling through the debris to the door. As soon as Gibbs met him at the door, the older man shifted aside, allowing the teen to shuffle through. He placed a gentle hand at the top of Andrew's back, guiding him slowly away from his room.

They could clean that up later.

* * *

The day after the funeral, things started picking up with regards to the children's guardianship. Andrew realised this when Gibbs called him down from his room, and Andrew spotted Jerome at the foot of the stairs, smiling a little up at the boy. The smile faltered slightly at the sight of the bandaged hands, but the man didn't comment.

"Hey, Andrew, how are you doing?"

The teen shrugged slightly, looking down at his feet. "Alright, I guess," he muttered, kicking at the floor slightly.

Jerome just nodded slightly, taking in Andrew's slightly hunched form and the way he seemed to avoid eye contact. Granted, the teen hadn't been great with that sort of thing before, but now he seemed… withdrawn.

Jerome stood up a little straighter, tucking his hands into his pockets and widening his smile in an effort to seem friendlier. "Hey, how about we have a chat? Just you and me. We can go out and grab burgers for lunch."

The teen pursed his lips as his eyes moved from his feet to Jerome. "What about Jessica?" he asked.

"I think this is a conversation for just the two of us to have. Besides, I have a feeling we have a fair bit to catch up on. So what do you say?"

The teen seemed to contemplate this for a good few moments, before finally nodding. "I'll, um… go and change," he muttered, before turning to head back to his room to change.

As soon as Andrew disappeared, Jerome's smile faded and he turned to face Gibbs. "It's hit him hard, huh?"

Gibbs just sighed, before jerking his head in the direction Andrew had gone. "You'll have to ask him yourself. I can't be telling you everything."

The social worker rolled his eyes at Gibbs, though the smile had started to return. "What, I need to base everything off what Andrew tells me?"

"That would be a good idea." The man turned to head to the basement, raising a single hand in farewell. "Have a good lunch."

Jerome just chuckled, glancing up the stairs to see Andrew descending as he shrugged on a jacket. When he noticed the smile on Jerome's face, he attempted a small one of his own. Jerome placed a hand on Andrew's shoulder as they headed towards the front door.

Once they sat in the car, Jerome noticed that it was more than just Andrew's general behaviour that had changed. There were smaller things that could be easy to miss – the fact that he was paler, that there were bags growing under his eyes, and the yawn he was holding back showed that he was tired. _Very_ tired.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Andrew asked as Jerome pulled away from Gibbs' home, heading towards the nearest mall so that they could grab something at the food court.

Jerome paused for a moment, thinking about what to ask first. "So how are things going with your psychologist?" he finally decided to ask.

Andrew simply shrugged as he turned to look out of the window. "Fine," he muttered.

"Have you spoken to her in the past week?"

"Not really."

Jerome raised an eyebrow. "Why not? She's there to help."

"I'm fine."

Jerome's lips pursed. "Really? Because you seem kinda tired to me."

That seemed to flip a switch in Andrew's mind, moving him from the "reserved and tired" category to "cranky and angry". "I'm fine," the teen snapped, sparing Jerome a glance. "I don't need your advice."

"I'm here to help, Andrew."

"Sounds more like lecturing to me."

Jerome sighed. "Andrew, listen—"

"Did you pull me out of the house to nag me away from Gibbs?" Andrew demanded, not turning to look at his social worker. "Just because I… I d-don't…" The teen took a shuddering breath. "J-just because I don't have a m-mom to do it doesn't mean you have to fill that spot!"

The social worker noticed how Andrew's voice cracked at the end and he pulled up on the side of the road, turning to face the teen better when they'd stopped. "You've been having nightmares again, haven't you?" he asked softly.

Andrew took in a sharp breath – a breath that sounded more like a sob. "What does it matter anyway? They're… they're _gone_." He choked out a sob. "They're _gone_! I-I j-just… i-it's not…"

"Hey, hey…" Jerome reached over to pull Andrew into a gentle embrace, holding him tighter when the boy began to sob into his chest. The two sat like that for a few minutes as Andrew sobbed, the sobs eventually becoming soft breaths. The ten quickly pulled away when he deemed himself okay enough.

"It's not fair," he grumbled, the sourness of his tone not matching the tear-stained cheeks. "It's not fair on Jessie! And it's not fair on me! And it's not fair on them!"

"I know, Andrew."

"And we were happy! We were happy and now we're not! And it hurts!"

"I know, Andrew."

"And now we have to live with this… with this strange Aunt Eleanor that we barely even know—"

"No, you don't, Andrew."

The teen looked up at the social worker sharply. "What?"

Jerome sat back in his seat with a sigh. "Eleanor… she's your aunt, but she doesn't think she's the right person to take you two in. Her job… she's away a lot." He glanced at Andrew. "She doesn't think she'll be able to sacrifice enough for you two if she took you in. Plus there's the added fact that neither of you seems to like her."

Andrew frowned in confusion. Whilst what Jerome was saying about him and his sister not liking the woman all that much… he was missing something. "Yeah, but…"

Jerome raised a single eyebrow. "But…?"

"But then, where are Jessica and I going to live?" He pursed his lips. "We can't stay at Gibbs' forever… can we?"

Jerome gave another sigh, this one bigger than the one he'd given earlier. "No, you're right about that. You can't stay with Gibbs because he's not legally certified to be a guardian to orphaned children. Not if they're not under witness protection." He pursed his lips. "Andrew… you're going to have to move into an orphanage with your sister." At the sudden outraged look on the teens face, Jerome held a hand up. "It's only _temporary_ , Andrew. We'll put you two into the foster care system after a few months, once you two have settled down a bit."

"So once we settle down… you start moving us about, basically?"

Jerome pursed his lips, before turning back to face the road and placing his hands on the steering wheel. "You know what? How about we talk about this over lunch? Burgers sound good?"

The teen scowled as he sat back in the seat, rubbing any traces of tears from his cheeks furiously. "I guess," he grumbled, turning his gaze to look out of the window.

Jerome sighed as he began to drive off again, recognising the signs of Andrew beginning to close off again. Yeah, this whole thing was going to go so well…


	23. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Here's a slightly shorter chapter, this one more of a filler and maybe a bit of a setup for later on? But yeah, anyway, another chapter for you guys to read, and I hope you enjoy it! It also overlaps with the previous chapter, so it provides more information to the circumstances and stuff.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

When he'd heard the smashing of glass and the ripping of paper, Gibbs knew exactly what was going on. He didn't even have to go upstairs to know that Andrew wasn't in the best of moods, but when he didn't find Jessica downstairs he decided it was best to head up and see whether she was okay.

The fact that she was curled up tightly under her blankets answered that query.

Slowly entering the room, Gibbs moved to kneel beside her bed, waiting for her to notice his presence. When she slowly poked her head out from beneath the covers, he offered her a small smile, ignoring the tear tracks that stained her cheeks.

"Hey," he greeted softly. He received a small sniffle in response. "Were you hiding from your brother?" he asked, hoping deep down that she hadn't.

When she shook her head slowly, he let out a soft breath of relief.

"I-I was taking a n-nap," she muttered quietly, bringing up a hand to rub at her cheeks. "B-but… but then I heard crashing, a-and it woke me up."

Gibbs wasn't surprised that she was in tears. The crime scene from their previous home had been enough to tell the agent that there had been a lot of crashing when their home had been broken into. If anything, it would've been more of a trigger for the young girl.

Shifting slightly so that he was only on one knee, he placed his hand on the bed, mostly to steady himself.

"How about we get you somewhere away from the noise?" he suggested calmly. When she nodded, he pushed himself into a standing position, before moving to lift her from the bed, keeping the blankets wrapped around her. Cradling her in his arms, Gibbs wasn't surprised when she burrowed her face into his chest, and he gently carried her down to the basement, placing her on of the stools.

She blinked heavily from her position under the blanket, staring at the half-completed boat that rested in the middle of the room. Of course, her childlike self didn't hesitate to point it out.

"Is that a boat?"

Gibbs smiled. The child was either sharp or had seen this kind of thing multiple times if she recognised it as a boat.

"Yeah, it is," he answered as he moved to grab a nearby sander, moving towards the wooden structure.

"Did you build it?"

"I had some help." _From Andrew_ , he added quietly in his head, but he didn't need to voice that for Jessica to know who he had received the help from.

The little girl nodded as she watched Gibbs begin to sand down the half of the boat skeleton that had been covered in planks of wood, remembering how Andrew had wanted to be the one to fasten on the remaining planks. After a good few minutes, Jessica spoke up – something that genuinely surprised Gibbs, even if he didn't show it.

"Andy used to build boats with daddy."

_Andy_. Considering Gibbs had been addressing the boy as Andrew, it sounded a bit strange to hear a nickname being used for the boy.

"They used to do it when daddy was home. Daddy liked making boats. They used them for fishing."

Gibbs glanced over at the little girl, who was now curled up on the seat, her back against the nearest counter and the blankets covering everything but her face. If Gibbs hadn't known better, her would've thought she looked very calm, almost at home on the seats. But her eyes were wide and unfocused as she stared at the boat, and she suddenly seemed a lot more mature than an eight year old should have seemed.

Setting the sander down, he moved to stand beside the girl, noticing how she had started to shake. He gently picked her up again, this time sitting on the stool himself and cradling her in his arms. He slowly rocked her back and forth, only realising the shaking had stopped when her breathing evened out. The old man sat there for a few moments still holding her in his arms.

How long had it been since he'd last done anything like this? Since he'd held a child in his arms, sleeping softly? It had been so long, yet he was only just realising how much he missed it.

And he was also realising just how attached he might be becoming.

* * *

As soon as he felt the coast was clear, Gibbs had carried Jessica up to bed, tucking her in before going to check on Andrew (now that there was no crashing or screaming). Standing by the closed door to the teen's room, he waited for a few moments before knocking on the door. At the mumbled response, he pushed the door open.

The room was a tip, to say the least. Glass on the floor, with smaller shards sprinkled on the bed and desk, along with the ceramic of the broken lamp base. The mirror sat haphazardly on the edge of Andrew's bed, teetering and sprinkled with blood that Gibbs was sure came from the teen's knuckles. The wall and floor were wet, and along with the glass there were pages and shredded pieces of paper scattered across the floor. All in all, it looked like a complete and utter mess in the room, and honestly Gibbs was surprised that more furniture hadn't been broken.

Leaning on the doorframe, he focused on the teen standing in the middle of all the rubble, his knuckles bleeding and tears rolling down his cheeks. Honestly, Gibbs was so glad that he wasn't that concerned about his clothing – if anything, he was glad that he was still wearing shoes, because that meant his feet were less likely to get injured by the glass on the floor. And the suit meant his limbs were covered as well – bar his hands, which he used to destroy everything anyway.

And Gibbs understood. He understood the need to let everything out – that everyone grieved in a different way, and some were explosive whilst others were quiet. And that was where Andrew and Jessica differed vastly.

"You hungry?" he suggested, trying to find something to distract the boy. The hesitation was tense, but then he responded with a nod that made Gibbs internally smile with relief.

On the outside, he only gave a nod, moving off the doorframe and beckoning the boy over a little so that he could head out of the door. "Alright then. Let's get you cleaned up first." As soon as the teen began passing him, Gibbs placed a gentle hand at the top of his back, between his shoulder blades, and began leading him down the corridor. He decided to stop off at the bathroom, watching as the teen began to strip off his jacket with a wince.

"Your hands hurt?" Gibbs asked, even though he already knew the answer. He just wanted the teen to communicate.

Andrew hesitated before nodding, looking over at Gibbs momentarily before down at the floor.

The older man moved to one of the bathroom cupboards, opening it to reveal a fairly large first aid kit, which he pulled out and set down on one of the counters. He opened it, pulling out some antiseptic wipes and a bandage, before moving towards the teen. Andrew flinched back initially, and Gibbs hesitated, waiting for him to relax and offer his hands for cleaning.

Eventually Andrew did, and Gibbs carefully began to clean blood off his hands, reaching for the tweezers when he realised there were a couple of small glass shards lodged in the wound from where he'd punched the mirror.

The whole ordeal was carried out silently, neither male making a noise (other than the occasional pained whimper from the teen) until Gibbs had wrapped bandages around his hands securely, and the teen flexed his hands a few times before finally looking up at Gibbs with a small smile.

"Thanks," he murmured quietly.

Gibbs just nodded before reaching for another wipe and moving towards the teen's face. "Now hold still."

Andrew frowned and squirmed as the older man began to wipe at his face, cleaning off the blood he'd smeared there. "Hey!" he protested childishly, bringing a smile out of Gibbs.

"I said we'd get you cleaned up."

"You're scrubbing my face off!"

"There's blood on it, Andrew."

The teen just huffed as Gibbs moved to the other cheek, wiping away the blood. Once he was satisfied, he ruffled the teen's hair, slightly concerned when he noticed a couple of stray shards fall out and clink on the counter.

"All done."

Andrew rubbed at his cheeks with his bandaged hands, huffing slightly. "Thanks, I guess," he muttered.

Gibbs simply gave him a nod as he began to pack everything away, throwing the used wipes (and the small shards of glass) in the trash and putting everything unused back into the first aid bag, placing the bag back in the cupboard.

There were a few moments of silence as Andrew tried to think of what to say, but it seemed as if he was beaten to the punch when Gibbs suddenly asked, "So what do you want to eat?"

The teen shrugged. He wasn't completely sure about what he wanted to eat – only that he was hungry and he needed to sate that hunger. "Maybe… pizza?"

The uncertainty of the teen's answer kept the smile on Gibbs' face. "Are you sure?"

"I guess."

"You don't sound sure."

The teen scowled at Gibbs, not quite sure as to whether he was pulling his leg or not. "Pizza. Pizza sounds good."

"Pizza it is." Gibbs moved towards the door, turning to beckon Andrew over. "Let's go order some pizza, then."

Andrew's scowl melted away into a smile as he followed Gibbs out of the door. Just before the two reached the stairs, Gibbs paused.

"You think you can order pizza on your own?" the man asked, noticing how the teen's eyes lit up at that before he looked incredibly nervous.

"I… I can do that…?"

"Yeah, why not?"

A smile grew on the teen's face as he moved to head downstairs to order the food. Once Gibbs felt he was occupied enough, he pulled out his cell phone and opened up a text from Jerome.

_You had a think about it?_

* * *

The man pursed his lips, before deciding to reply – slowly, because he wasn't a texter and couldn't quite see the letters on the buttons clearly.

_Bring me the files._

Jerome arriving the following day to have a chat with Andrew had actually been ideal for Gibbs. Despite the fact that he still had Jessica on his hands, having one less child around to worry about made it a fair bit easier to do the things he needed.

Like head over to the office.

"Hey," he greeted as he knocked on Jessica's door, pushing it open slightly and poking his head in to see the little girl lying on her bed, drawing in her book. She looked up when Gibbs entered, closing the book and sitting up more fully.

"Hi, Gibbs," she greeted quietly, and he took that as his cue to push open the door further and begin walking into her room. When she didn't curl away or scowl, Gibbs took that as a good sign.

Moving closer to the bed, he squatted, resting his elbows on his knees, so that he was closer to Jessica's height. "What do you think about heading over to headquarters with me?"

She seemed to purse her lips in thought, before nodding in agreement.

He smiled as he pushed himself into a standing position, slipping his hands into his pockets. "Wanna head down in about five minutes?"

She shrugged slightly. "I'm hungry," she mumbled quietly, looking down at the floor by Gibbs' feet.

Fortunately, Gibbs didn't have to make her repeat what she'd said to understand, and he nodded. "How about we grab something for you on the way there? We can get anything you want."

That brought a shy smile to her face as she nodded. "Okay, then."

* * *

The office was pretty quiet when Gibbs and Jessica arrived, all three agents focused on the paperwork that had piled up over the course of the case they'd been involved in – of course, it may also have had something to do with the fact that they hadn't really done as much of the paperwork as they should've before the case had even started.

Well, they weren't all exactly doing work, as demonstrated by the paper planes Tony had decided to throw around the bullpen.

The agent was genuinely shocked when Gibbs grabbed one of the flying projectiles as he walked into the bullpen, a bag of takeout in one hand and Jessica hot on his heels as she carried her drawing book tightly against her chest. He didn't even hesitate before scrunching up the piece of paper, not caring what had been on it before tossing it in the trash. He ignored the sheepish greeting he received from the agent in favour of pulling out the seat at his desk for Jessica to sit on. Setting the bag on the desk, he pulled out a Chinese takeout box for the little girl, along with a fork. She watched as he set the box down in front of her and opened it, sticking the fork into the chow mein for her to eat.

"None for you until you get that paperwork done," Gibbs suddenly said, anticipating the question Tony was about to ask (probably due to the fact that he could hear Tony licking his lips from his desk). The childish whine told him his assumption of what Tony would ask was correct.

Once he'd got her all settled, he gave her a smile before moving away from the desk. "Keep an eye on her," he told the other agents before moving to head towards the conference rooms.

"Oh, Gibbs!" Ziva leapt up from her seat, quickly walking over to where the agent was quickly retreating. The man hesitated when he heard his name being called, waiting for Ziva to catch up with him.

"There is a woman waiting in conference room one," she informed him once she'd reached him. "She said that there was something important to talk with you about." When he raised an eyebrow, she pursed her lips. "It was not Bloomfield."

His eyebrows rose, before he gave her a simple nod and turned to walk away. "Thanks, David."

She nodded before turning to head back to the desk, scowling when she realised that Tony had gotten up and was standing by Gibbs' desk. "Leave the child and go back to your paperwork," she snapped, almost grinning when he scampered back to his desk. Her amusement was shared by McGee, who snorted.

And, surprisingly, Jessica, who gave a smile as she dug into her takeout.

* * *

Gibbs didn't bother to knock as he entered the conference room. As Ziva had said, there was a woman already in the room waiting, standing by the window and looking out at the view it provided of the Navy Yard. When the door opened, she turned to look at the entrant, smiling.

"Mr Gibbs?" she said, her question sounding more like a statement as she moved from the window to the table. Once Gibbs had shut the door behind him, she moved to shake his hand. "I'm Sadie Fischer. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Gibbs nodded as he gave her a pleasant smile, sitting down opposite her. "And you, Ms Fischer."

"Please, call me Sadie." She took a seat, reaching down to pull her bag up onto the table and opening it, seemingly searching for something inside. "Now, from what I hear, you know Jerome pretty well, and he's told me a lot about you." She glanced up at him. "Well, pretty well considering the circumstances.

"Anyway, he and I have had a chat concerning your… situation," she continued, seeming to find what she was looking for and pulling a folder out of the satchel, setting it on the table as she set the satchel on the floor. "And he tells me you're very interested."

The man simply nodded.

She opened the folder and pulled out some documents and set them so that they were facing him so that he could read them. "Alright, let's get talking about you becoming a foster parent, then."


	24. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I know it's been a while, but I've got another chapter here for you! I think we're nearly done with this story - maybe a couple more chapters or so left. But I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Silence. That was what greeted Gibbs as he walked into his home after work.

Granted, it was never usually that noisy, but even Jessica made some sort of noise as she drew – whether it was a subconscious humming, or the scratching of her pencils against the paper in her sketch book. But now there was nothing. No light bickering between the two (which had become more frequent in the past few days or so), no Jessica humming to herself, no Andrew tapping on every available surface (which Gibbs realised was more of a nervous habit than anything). It was strange, really – he'd gotten used to the small noises, the knowledge that there was someone else in the house to make him feel less alone.

But now they were gone. It had been less than a week since the children had been moved out of his home and into an orphanage, and he was already feeling the effects. He didn't think there would be any change since they were so quiet, but he realised it as soon as he realised he was waiting for Andrew to join him in continuing the boat in the basement.

He'd promptly downed a good couple of shots of bourbon to wash away the lonely feeling that followed the realisation that the boy wasn't coming.

Next it had been when he found the boxes of unfinished cereals in his cupboard – sugary foods that he would never eat, really, but they were just there and they reminded him of them. That was, admittedly, the only time he'd invited the team (and Abby) over for breakfast at the weekend, and DiNozzo had happily dug into the sugary cereals and finished them that day.

And then he realised every little thing reminded him of them – their bedroom doors, the coffee table where Jessica used to draw when she didn't want to be up in her room, the hallways that were now completely empty where there used to be books and shoes littered almost everywhere (and they were usually Andrew's). It… it reminded him of those painful times after the better days, where he'd had a family around all the time.

He started spending more time in the office, until his team started telling him off for staying behind for too long and Ziva began to almost mother him (he didn't let her get to that stage, because Gibbs just  _didn't_  get mothered unless it was Abby). Ducky inviting him down for a cup of tea was a nice change and a good way to get his mind off things, but it could only help so much.

And then there was the new venture, what Jerome had suggested to him. He couldn't believe he'd actually gone for it, but he was doing it. It was big, and kind of scary, but he was doing it. He was doing it, and he was really hoping that he wouldn't come to regret it in the future.

Running a tired hand through his hair as he took off his shoes and left his bag by the front door, he locked the front door – a habit he'd gotten used to since the kids had been under his care. Ignoring that fact, he moved towards the stairs to head up and get ready for bed. He ignored the temptation to take a peek into what had once been the children's rooms – they were now empty, stripped bare and void of any evidence that there had once been people staying in there other than the dents in the wall of what had been Andrew's room.

Reaching his room, he sighed as he changed into something he could sleep in, his eyes lingering on the small pile of files that rested on his bedside table beside his glasses. He sat down on his bed, after turning on his bedside lamp and turning off the main bedroom light, and put on his specs, picking up the papers to read through them again.

Honestly, he couldn't recall how many times he'd read through them already, but he just couldn't seem to stop reading through them, searching for a catch or something he'd missed beforehand. He wanted – no,  _needed_  – to be thorough. He didn't want to miss a single detail.

By the time he felt like he'd adequately looked through everything, at least for the time being, it was just past midnight. The man sighed as he set the papers back down on the nightstand before shifting to lay down on the bed properly, switching off the lamp.

He could think more about it in the morning.

* * *

 

Funnily enough, it wasn't just Gibbs who was feeling the effects of the children's disappearance. Maybe it wasn't so obvious with McGee, who kept focused on his paperwork as usual and tried to ignore Tony, but Ziva was definitely that little bit snippier with DiNozzo. Though, that might've been due to the fact that whenever he was irritating he was  _very_  irritating, and when he wasn't he was just very quiet.

Even Abby was showing changes in behaviour. Her lab was more quiet than usual – still playing her music, but at a lower volume than even Gibbs was accustomed to. Not that he didn't appreciate his sense of hearing, but he was concerned for the Forensics specialist. Of course, Gibbs had no real reason to visit her in the lab (something the director didn't hesitate to point out), but he checked up on her anyway. Partially to make sure she was okay, and partially to distract himself from paperwork, because he knew if he sat there to work, his mind would drift. Drift to the absence of the kids, to the sullen behaviour of his team, to all of the upcoming checks and inspections… to the fact that he hadn't told anyone what he was doing. Not a single soul knew.

And when others found out, they were bound to be less than pleased with him for not telling them anything.

Standing from his desk, he picked up his now cold cup of coffee and downed what little was left before throwing the cup in the trash can beneath his desk.

"I'm getting coffee."

All three agents looked up and watched as Gibbs left the bullpen, heading straight for the elevator.

"I'm pretty sure he  _just_  got that coffee?" Tony asked with a hint of confusion on his features, watching as his boss disappeared into the elevator and proceeded to leave the building.

Ziva simply shrugged as she also watched Gibbs leave, turning her eyes back to the paperwork in front of her as the elevator doors closed. "He is out of coffee," she stated simply.

"You're missing my point."

She looked back up at Tony with a raised eyebrow, watching him as he challenged her with his own stare.

"And what is your point?"

"When have you ever seen Gibbs drink coffee that quickly?" he asked, catching McGee's attention. When there was no answer from either of the agents, he folded his arms. "I rest my case."

"Yeah, well, we've all been a bit off since the end of our last case," McGee pointed out before turning back to his paperwork. "Gibbs has been dealing with it the worst, but Abby's not too far behind."

The other two agents in the bullpen proceeded to turn and raise their eyebrows at him.

"What, you think I haven't noticed?" He jabbed his pen in Tony's direction. "Tony hasn't been himself either."

Ziva smirked when the agent spoken of sputtered. "I have noticed also," she added, her comment causing the man to give an indignant huff.

"I have not changed one bit!" he protested.

Ziva leaned forward onto her desk, her fist supporting her chin as she gave Tony a look that told him she was about to annoy him to bits. "Would you like us to list the ways in which you have?"

* * *

 

Gibbs sighed as he pulled up in front of the building, turning off the engine and running a hand over his face. He'd told himself to stop coming here, to separate himself from them so that he could get things done with a clear mind… but he was becoming attached, no matter what he told himself or other people. He was becoming attached and it was dangerous, really. He was supposed to distance himself, just in case things didn't go as planned, but then he remembered the looks on the kids' faces whenever he said he wasn't going to be around and his resolve crumbled slightly. Slightly was enough to get him to do anything.

Stepping out of the car, he locked the doors behind him before walking up the cobbled pathway to the front door, knocking before pushing the door open and walking in as he usually did. His appearance startled the woman at the small wooden reception desk that stood in the far corner of the reception area, beneath the "Welcome to Virginia's" sign obviously hand-painted by a child. When she realised who it was, she gave a sigh and a relieved smile, though the look she gave him was anything but.

"Mr Gibbs, I didn't know you would be back so soon." She began to turn back to the paperwork she'd been doing beforehand.

"Neither did I, to be honest," the man replied, slowly making his way over to the desk in the corner with his hands in his pockets.

When he reached the desk, the woman looked up at him momentarily, still trying to focus on sorting out the paperwork in front of her. "Has everything gone through?"

"Not yet."

The woman gave him a look. "Mr Gibbs, you do know the problems associated with children getting attached, don't you?" The woman shuffled some of the various pieces of paperwork sat in front of her, closing the book that sat there and organising the papers around it. "The children are fine, and it would be better for us all if you didn't—"

"Gibbs!"

The two adults looked up to see Andrew steadily making his way down the staircase on the far side of the room, a hand protectively covering his stomach as he moved. Gibbs watched him sharply, unaware that the woman at the desk beside him was watching how he was making sure the teen didn't give himself any more injuries.

When the teen finally reached the two adults at the desk, he leaned on it with a smile – a slightly strained smile, but a smile nonetheless. He ignored the disapproving look the woman gave him and focused on Gibbs instead.

"What are you doing here?" he asked the agent, before his smile turned into a knowing smirk. "Aren't you meant to be at work?"

The older man smiled at the teen as he shrugged. "On a coffee run."

"We're fair distance away from the coffee place, Gibbs…"

Gibbs rolled his eyes at the teen. "What, so I'm not allowed to see you anymore?"

Andrew huffed out a laugh, though Gibbs didn't miss the short wince that followed. "Well we're not under witness protection anymore so… you don't really have a reason to see us." He raised an eyebrow. "Or do you?"

The agent glanced away, though he still had a smile on his face. Trust the teen to start pushing for information that wasn't there – or, at least, information that Gibbs  _thought_  wasn't there. Instead of answering the teen's question (deciding to take it as rhetorical rather than an actual question to be answered), he followed up with his own. "How've you settled in?"

The smile faded slightly from Andrew's face as he shifted, moving from leaning on the desk to a slightly more hunched-over position. The position was  _defensive_ , Gibbs realised.

"Alright," he muttered, the amusement on his features making way for the closed-off moodiness that had lurked beneath. A closed-off moodiness that Gibbs hadn't seen in a while – something that worried him a lot.

He decided to take a different approach. "How's Jessica doing?"

The teen shrugged. "Alright, I guess."

"She made friends here?"

Andrew shook his head. "She prefers to sit on her own and do stuff," he answered. "She doesn't really… get on with the other kids."

"Just here or at school?"

"Both? I think."

The older man had to hold back the sigh he wanted to let out at that. From what he could tell, any progress he'd made with getting the children to open up had backpedalled. A lot. "How about you? Any new friends? Anything new going on in your life?"

Andrew hesitated for a moment, before shaking his head. "Not really, no."

The hesitation made Gibbs a little suspicious, but he decided not to push it. Not now, at least. He didn't exactly have all the time in the world to question the teen. After all, he was meant to be on a 'coffee run' – that meant little time for chit-chat. But, somehow, he felt that Andrew was faring about as well as Jessica was – both unsettled by the sudden change in circumstances, to the point that they were closing almost everyone off.

"You two still seeing the shrink?" he asked in an attempt to raise Andrew's mood. And it worked, if the slight smirk on the teen's face and the disapproving look the woman at the desk gave him were any indication.

"Shrink?" the woman scoffed incredulously, causing Andrew to snort quietly, trying to contain his laughter.

"Sorry,  _child psychologist_ ," the senior supervisory agent corrected with exaggeration, though he could tell that Andrew knew exactly what he'd meant.

"You mean Miss Bloomfield?" the teen asked, the smile still on his face. "We still see her. We have appointments with her twice a week, like usual."

"And how are they going?"

"Why all the questions?" Andrew asked suddenly. He was still smiling, but his brows were furrowed in what seemed to be confusion. "I mean, I'm not annoyed… it's just…"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at the teen questioningly. "What, you don't want to talk to me?" he asked, initially teasing the boy but then slightly concerned at Andrew's lack of an answer and the way his face fell.

The teen hesitated for a few moments, his eyes darting over to the woman at the desk momentarily, before he answered Gibbs. "They told me you'd be too busy to come and see us for a while…"

Gibbs resisted the urge to glare at the woman sat at the desk, who'd suddenly found what she was doing a whole lot more interesting. "Well… they're not wrong," he admitted slowly. Noticing the confused look on Andrew's face, he waved the thought aside. "Don't worry about it, Andrew. We'll still be talking every once in a while." He reached over and placed a gentle hand on Andrew's shoulder. "I won't forget about you."

A small, relieved smile broke out on Andrew's face.

Gibbs leaned closer to the teen, making sure that the woman seated at the desk wouldn't hear what he was about to say next, and murmured, "Gotta make sure you still go to the shrink somehow."

The smile turned into a smirk as Andrew snorted, his hand coming up to cover his mouth as Gibbs moved away, with his lips quirked up into his own smirk.

The man ruffled the teen's hair affectionately, before moving to head towards the front door. "Well, I was only meant to be out grabbing coffee," he explained briefly, deciding to ignore the fact that he could see the woman's raised eyebrows and hear her scoff.

The teen grinned as he leaned on the desk, folding his arms, and for a moment Gibbs was hit with the realisation that the kid had a very Tony-like attitude right then and there. "That's a long coffee run," Andrew teased, making Gibbs chuckle and shake his head slightly.

The grey haired man turned and started to make his way over to the front door, getting ready to leave. "I'll see you later Andrew," he called back, heading out of the door as he heard the teen call out his own farewell.

As soon as Gibbs shut the door behind him and began to head back to the car (going on that coffee run that he'd actually come out of the office for), a decision became clear in his mind:

He was going to foster these kids no matter what, and he was going to work as hard as he could to get them.


	25. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! So, I'm nearly done with this fic! What I've got planned is one chapter after this, and then the epilogue, and then I should be done! So, technically, two more chapters! (So close...)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! This is shorter than usual, but I had to shorten it otherwise two chapters would be put into one and would be too long. But anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

It took a long time. Gibbs knew that it would take a long time, but even in his opinion it took a long time. Case upon case upon case passed every week, and every week Gibbs realised it was taking longer and longer for the files to be processed, for his application to go through, for him to actually become qualified as a foster carer.

And the longer it took, the more he felt like he was going to lose the children.

Granted, it wasn't as if there was actually a time limit on when he could actually begin to foster the children. He knew they would end up being fostered no matter what, and that was what he wanted. But a part of him wanted to take care of them himself, make sure that they were being cared for properly, in a way that he approved of. He wanted to make sure they stayed near and weren't shipped off to some other state.

He didn't want to lose them.

The rest of the team had tacked on to the fact that it was about more than just the kids going into the system. They hadn't quite figured out what the extra problem was, but they knew it was there. The thing was, any time someone tried to ask about it, the conversation was either switched very quickly to something else, or something came up on a case they were investigating. There was never a proper conversation about it – not even with Abby or Ducky.

That was, until there was a visitor in the office.

It wasn't often that strangers, random people, came to the office. A while back, it had been Bloomfield visiting regularly to not only check up on the kids, but on the agents as well (who counted as kids in her opinion, so she didn't really mind). Somehow she'd managed to get close to McGee, though whatever relationship was blooming died down in a week. Next it had been the kids' social worker, Jerome, visiting Gibbs about moving the kids' stuff out and getting them ready to move into the system.

But this new woman? The agents were damn sure they'd never met her properly before – at least, the males hadn't – and in Tony's opinion she wasn't enough of a redhead to count as one of Gibbs' many ladies over the years. Yet, she still asked for the Senior Supervisory Agent, who had gone on a coffee run (an  _actual_  coffee run, for himself – McGee would go later for the others), and allowed Ziva to show her to one of the conference rooms so that she could wait for him.

As soon as Ziva left, McGee and Tony sent each other confused looks.

"What do you think that's all about?" Tony asked as he turned back to the paperwork on his desk (or at least, pretended to – none of the others knew what he was really doing anyway).

McGee shrugged as he went back to typing away at his computer. "I don't know," he muttered, focusing on the screen.

"Who was that woman?"

"I, again, do not know, Tony."

"She can't be one of Gibbs' lady friends." By now, McGee realised Tony was voicing his thoughts aloud. "Too much blonde, not enough strawberry."

"Why does everything have to be about 'lady friends' with you?"

"She's gotta be a friend from somewhere else," Tony continued, not answering McGee. "Maybe from those long coffee runs he takes."

McGee raised an eyebrow at him. "Coffee runs?"

"Yeah!" Tony smirked as he stood, moving around his desk to head towards McGee's. "Just imagine – taking time out of work to have a little secret rendezvous, finding a little lady in a coffee shop to have some fun with—"

"I thought you just said she was too blonde?"

Tony leaned on McGee's desk. "Doesn't mean he can't have some fun with her."

The younger agent looked up at him with a single raised eyebrow before rolling his eyes at Tony. "You and I both know that Gibbs has  _way_  more tact than you're giving him credit for. Definitely more than you."

"Is that so, McGoo?" Tony leaned down. "And how much tact do  _I_  have?"

Before McGee could answer, swift footsteps entered the bullpen. "You done with your paperwork, DiNozzo?"

Tony immediately straightened up. "Just taking a bit of a break, boss."

Gibbs turned his head and gave Tony a single raised eyebrow.

"Getting back to my paperwork now, boss."

As Tony turned to head back to his desk and continue with his paperwork, McGee looked up over his computer at Gibbs. "Uh, boss, there's someone waiting for you in one of the conference rooms."

That caused Gibbs to pause, about to set his coffee down on his desk. "Who?"

"Uh, we don't know, but Ziva took her down."

Gibbs nodded, taking his coffee and heading out of the bullpen towards the conference rooms. As he headed down the corridor approaching the rooms, he spotted Ziva walking out of one of the rooms. Her eyes widened when she spotted him, and she shut the door gently behind her before approaching him.

"Gibbs, it is the woman from the other day," she informed him, clasping her hands in front of her. "She informs me that you are to have an interview."

Gibbs nodded and moved to move past her, raising an eyebrow when she moved to stand in his way. A bold move on her part, honestly.

"Gibbs," she started, glancing around nervously before continuing, "if you are in any sort of trouble… any at all… you will come to us about it? Or, at least, to me?"

Gibbs just continued to stare at Ziva, waiting for her to let him pass so that he could head into the conference room. When she didn't move, he sighed.

"You have paperwork to do."

"I know about the papers."

_That_  made Gibbs straighten up. Ziva pursed her lips, letting out a sigh through her nose.

"I asked the woman in there, who is very pleasant, by the way, why she had come to see you a second time," she explained. "After all, I was the one she spoke to the previous time. And she tells me you have an interview. An important one that relates to papers you have completed." When Gibbs didn't give an answer, she took a step closer. "Gibbs, please, do not hide things from us. We are your team—"

"I'm your boss."

"And a boss would tell if he was going to do something important." Her brows furrowed. "Why are you hiding this from us?"

Finally deciding it was about time to end the conversation, Gibbs twisted and slipped past her, coffee unspilled and still in his hand. As soon as he passed her, he spoke:

"Because I didn't need you to know yet, David."

"You mean you didn't  _want_  us to know?"

"Go back to your paperwork before I send you on a coffee run."

Even though Ziva still knew Gibbs was hiding something unnecessarily, her lip quirked up into somewhat of a smirk and she made her way back to the bullpen, rounding the corner just as she heard the door to the conference room shut.

Spotting Sadie sitting at the table, he took a deep breath before moving to sit across from her, returning her smile.

"Mr Gibbs," she greeted, folding her hands on the table in front of her. "It's so nice to see you again." Pulling a file in front of her, she took a deep breath before opening it. "Let's get down to business, then."

* * *

As soon as Ziva returned to the bullpen, the two males rounded on her.

"Who was that?" Tony demanded, not even giving her a chance to make it three steps into the bullpen, never mind get to her seat.

Ziva rolled her eyes at Tony's sudden demand for answers, slipping past him and heading straight over to her desk, sitting down gracefully and turning to her computer to continue with what she had been doing before escorting the woman to the conference room. She managed to go a good few seconds before giving in and huffing. "What?" she demanded, finally looking over at them.

"I asked you a question," Tony pointed out, giving her his usual sarcastic, raised eyebrows expression.

Ziva pursed her lips, before turning back to her computer and her work. "It is not mine to tell."

"Oh, come on…" Tony whined, totally disregarding the displeased look McGee gave him. "Spill, Ziva, spill!"

"As I have already said, it is not mine to tell," she repeated, continuing with her work.

"How can it not be yours to tell?"

She gave him a deadpan expression that answered his question quickly.

"Oh."

The team went practically silent, before Tony decided to open his mouth and speak. "What if we go and listen in?"

"Gibbs would kill us," McGee answered immediately.

"Only if he caught us."

The other two gave him a look.

"…Which he's bound to do anyway so it's better if we don't try," Tony answered himself, sighing.

Honestly, all three of the agents wanted to find out what was going on with Gibbs, but there was no way they'd be able to get any information out of the senior agent unless he was to tell them directly… and even then, he was often cryptid and they had to get Abby to translate for them.

Hearing Gibbs' phone suddenly ring was most definitely a surprise, though. Most people called the man's cell directly, especially if they had a case, but his desk phone was for non-emergencies and for other people in general.

The three agents looked at each other, wide-eyed expressions on their faces, wondering who would dare to head over to the desk first. None of the agents dared to move… until they all jumped up to answer it at once.

Ziva was the first to grab it, giving the men a triumphant smirk as she put the receiver to her ear. "Special Agent Gibbs' desk, Special Agent David speaking," she greeted professionally, keeping Tony away with her knee. The response spoken on the other line made her eyebrows rise. "What…?"

* * *

Gibbs gave Sadie a (small, but) pleasant smile (something that he rarely gave anyone, really) as they both stood from their seats, taking her hand as she reached out for him to shake it.

"Thank you for this meeting, Mr Gibbs," Sadie said pleasantly, releasing his hand and moving to tidy up her papers so that she could leave. "I know how busy your work days usually are, so to have you take time out and speak with me is very kind of you."

"Today's been a slow day," he responded with a small smirk, causing the woman to chuckle. "It was nice seeing you too."

"Hopefully when I see you again, it'll be at the final point before everything finally happens." She picked up all of her files and moves around the table to approach the door. Gibbs moved ahead of her, moving to open the door for her.

As soon as he opened the door, though, he was met with his three agents scrambling over themselves to get to the door, all three of them straightening up as soon as they realised Gibbs was watching them. And the woman in the room standing beside him, just about to exit through the doorway.

There were a few moments of silence as the agents tried to make themselves seem presentable in front of the visitor, and then Ziva spoke up.

"Gibbs, the children's home called," she started, looking confident but betraying her nerves in her eyes.

Gibbs' brows furrowed. "And…?" After all, there was no reason the home should be calling him at all.

"It's Andrew and Jessica… they've run away."


	26. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> So... I kinda lied? There's actually one more chapter after this, before the epilogue. I ended up writing more than I anticipated? I would say "oops", but I guess that's better for you guys! Plus, take it as kind of an apology for not writing more over the summer, haha.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

As soon as the words came out of Ziva's mouth, Gibbs felt his heart momentarily stop.

_Run away?_  He… he supposed he could understand if the children weren't happy being at the home. After all, they'd recently lost their parents, had been taken into witness protection, and were now living somewhere completely unfamiliar, not making many friends (if any at all). Jessica was a closed off child, and was probably getting more and more closed off the longer she stayed there. Andrew, on the other hand, was getting more agitated, was easier to anger, and from what little he'd heard from the boy he was having regular nightmares that stopped him from being able to sleep. The children weren't happy at all, and the other children at the home… they weren't that accommodating of the two newcomers when they weren't trying to settle in.

But still, that didn't mean they should  _run away_. After all, that was the only place that they could be visited, the only place where people knew exactly where they were. It was the one place they were where Gibbs knew for a fact they would be taken care of, the one place Gibbs knew that Andrew's slowly adjusting diet would be followed to the tee and he wouldn't be left to fend for himself, the one place where he knew they would have warm meals, a bed and a roof over their heads.

The tense silence was almost suffocating, and the woman beside Gibbs cleared her throat, bowing her head and frowning slightly at the situation that had arisen. "Well, I should be heading back to the office now," she said, trying to move past the agents.

That seemed to snap Gibbs out of his reverie. "Ziva, escort Ms Fischer out of the building," he ordered, ushering the woman out of the door before moving to head down the corridor. "DiNozzo, McGee, with me."

The two male agents briskly walked after Gibbs, hot on his heels as they headed back to the bullpen whilst Ziva began to escort the woman out of the building.

As soon as they reached the bullpen, Gibbs began barking out orders.

"McGee, get a BOLO out on the kids! They're witnesses of a murder where the murderers still have contacts outside prison. DiNozzo, head over to Virginia's, go into their rooms, look through their stuff for anything that could give reason as to why they ran away or where they're heading." He tossed Tony the keys to the charger, barely even watching as Tony caught the keys single-handedly and briskly left the bullpen, bag and coat in hand.

As soon as he heard the elevator open, Gibbs grabbed his own bags and coat and began to head out of the bullpen with his keys. "McGee!"

"Yes, Boss!"

"When Ziva gets back, tell her to contact the schools and head over there to search! You start looking through traffic cams for any sign of those kids."

"Yes, Boss!"

With a single nod, Gibbs headed out of the bullpen and towards the elevator, jumping in before the doors could close completely and heading down to the garage. Maybe Tony would be looking at the home, and Ziva at the school, but Gibbs knew the other people the kids would've been in contact with. So he had ideas of where they would go.

* * *

Tony sighed as he pulled up to the children's home, quickly switching off the engine and climbing out of the vehicle, gloves in his back pocket. He quickly shut the car door and moved up the pathway towards the front door, noticing the flurry of activity. He quickly made his way up to the front door and headed inside to the reception area, heading straight to the desk. He pulled his badge out of his inside pocket to show to the woman sitting there, making calls.

"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo of NCIS," he announced, which caused the woman to quickly end her call and focus on him.

"Oh thank God, you're finally here," she breathed, looking frenzied. "I've called the police, but they haven't arrived yet. I thought since they were involved in a case of yours, you could help."

"Do you remember the last time you saw them, Miss…"

"Wilson," the woman answered. "Mrs Wilson. And the last time I saw them was when they left for school yesterday. Andrew didn't mention anything about being out with friends or staying over at someone's for a night, but one of the other children told us that he'd told them so at school. I didn't think anything was wrong until their schools called me to tell me that the children hadn't turned up at school that day. I waited until the time they would usually arrive from school, but when I realised they had actually disappeared… well, I called the police as soon as I could, but I wasn't sure how long they'd been gone…"

Tony nodded as he quickly pulled out a pad and started noting all of this down. "And you didn't notice anything strange about his behaviour before he and his sister ran away…?" Tony asked.

"Not exactly. Those two have been mostly quiet anyway, so I didn't hear or see anything different about their behaviours…"

Tony nodded slowly. "Would it be okay if I have a look at their rooms, see what stuff they took?"

Mrs Wilson nodded, standing from her seat behind the desk. "Of course; let me show you to their room." At the look on the Special Agent's face, the woman elaborated: "The two of them asked to share a room when they got here. They were very attached and didn't seem to mingle well with the other children."

Tony nodded slowly, noting that mentally. There seemed to be a lot about the children's stay here that he didn't know about…

Maybe he should ask Gibbs about it when he gets back with is findings, he thought as he followed the receptionist towards the staircase and upstairs to the bedrooms.

* * *

Returning to the bullpen, Ziva wasn't surprised at all to see that McGee was the only one left of the three male agents – she'd assumed that the other two would've gone out to look for the kids personally.

What she didn't expect was for Gibbs to leave a task behind for her to complete. After all, those left behind usually got stuck with computer work and putting out BOLOs and the like. In other words, what McGee was doing.

"Gibbs wants you to head down to the schools and see if you can find anything there," McGee informed her as he kept his eyes glued to the screen, looking for any sort of indication of where the children could be on the traffic cameras in the area. So far, he hadn't come up with much, if anything at all.

Ziva raised a single eyebrow, silently wondering why McGee wasn't doing that instead, but nodded, grabbing her bag and coat and heading down to the garage. Within twenty minutes, she'd reached Jessica's school, heading straight in to the reception area. The woman who greeted her there was friendly enough – maybe not so helpful, but friendly.

"Oh, Miss Parkson? Oh that sweet child – I haven't seen her smile since before her parents died, the poor soul. Always smiling, that one was. Always talking, and very friendly. Never had a bad word against her name. And very bright, too – I was always passing on messages to her parents about how well she was doing in her classes for her teachers…" The woman's brow furrowed slightly. "She didn't turn up to school today, which I found very strange. Very difficult to miss her in a crowd, what with her red hair. I called the home, but they said she wasn't there." The woman put her hand to her cheek. "The poor thing. I hope she's alright."

Ziva offered the woman a smile. "We do also, but we need as much information about Jessica as possible," she told the woman gently. "Is there any way to find out where exactly she would have been in the school."

The woman was quiet for a few moments (something  _very_  surprising to Ziva) before she began typing away at her computer. "I can obtain her class schedule for you. It lists all her teachers and their classrooms. They should all still be here."

Ziva's smile became relieved as the woman began to print off the class schedule for her. "Thank you very much," she told the other woman. "Is there any chance I could also get directions to the rooms?"

"Oh, I'll print off a map for you as well, dearie."

Within a couple of minutes, two sheets of paper were set down in front of Ziva – one with Jessica's daily timetable, and the other with a map of the school. The female agent took them gratefully, smiling at the woman at the desk.

"Thank you very much."

"Oh, not a problem, sweetie! You just find those children and make sure they're safe."

Ziva nodded, before beginning to head off to one of Jessica's teachers' classrooms. Even though she looked calm on the outside… Ziva desperately hoped that at least one of the teachers she was going to interview had some idea as to where Jessica had disappeared off to.

* * *

Knowing that Tony and Ziva were covering the schools and the home, Gibbs only had ideas of two more places that the children would disappear off to. One was definitely more likely than the other, he knew, but he had to go to both, just in case.

Pulling up in front of the house that he'd deemed more likely, Gibbs had barely turned off the engine when he climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut, heading straight up to the front door of the building. Knocking on the door, he didn't have to wait long before the door was opened to reveal Alice Miller, looking fairly confused.

"Uh… hello…?" she asked slowly.

"Hello, Alice," Gibbs greeted.

"Did my aunt do something?" she asked slowly. "I thought she was awaiting trial or something."

"No, not your aunt."

"My mom isn't here."

"Don't need your mom either."

"…And neither is Andy."

That made Gibbs pause, which in turn made the teenager's eyebrows rise.

"Oh, so you're looking for Andy?" She leaned on the doorframe, her arms folded. "Well he's definitely not here. Last time I saw him was at school yesterday." Her brows furrowed. "He looked really shifty and unsure, and didn't really talk much at all. I mean, he hasn't been talking much recently, but yesterday he was talking even less than usual. And when we actually did talk… he was saying stuff about how he couldn't stay there anymore…"

Gibbs would've asked where, but he had a feeling he knew exactly where  _there_  was.

"Did he give you any indication of where he was heading next?"

The girl shook her head.

Gibbs nodded. "You got my number?"

"I think so."

"Call me if anything changes."

The teen nodded, watching Gibbs as he half-jogged back to the car, climbing straight in and starting the car before heading to his next destination.

* * *

Tony barely had to ask for directions before he reached the room Andrew and Jessica shared – it was the only bedroom on the landing without any sort of decoration on the door other than a piece of paper stating their names.

Pushing the door open, Tony didn't know whether to be surprised or disappointed that the room seemed pretty bare, considering how long the children had been there. The only sign that the children had been living there at all was the fact that there were still sheets on the bed, despite them being ruffled as if they had been used. There were some clothes spread out on the beds, but other than that Tony could see no obvious clue that the two of them had run away.

Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, he took a deep breath. "Let's get searching, then."

* * *

Ziva sighed as she walked out of the elementary school, notepad tucked into her back pocket with a pen as she headed for her car. She'd had no luck so far in finding anything – none of the teachers recalled anything about Jessica, other than the fact that she was perhaps quieter than usual. Not a huge help to Ziva considering that meant they didn't hear anything about her thinking of running away. Not even the school's counsellor knew anything, which Ziva thought was fairly appalling considering the counsellor was supposed to be seeing Jessica regularly.

After getting into her car, it didn't take too long for her to reach the high school, where Andrew was now a student. Climbing out of the car, she took a deep breath.

If the children were running away, it was more likely that Andrew had everything to do with it and was pulling his sister along than the other way around. Which meant that she would probably find more clues here. Hopefully.

Walking into the reception, she wasn't surprised to see the receptionist typing away at her computer – most likely sending emails to the many parents of the students attending that school. When she heard the clicking of Ziva's boots, she looked up.

"Hello," the woman started, giving Ziva a polite smile, "I'm sorry, but it's after school hours. I'm afraid I may be unable to help you."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll still be able to help me," Ziva corrected with a polite smile on her own. "I'm here to try and find out some information on Andrew Parkson…"


	27. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Here it is - the final chapter of this fic before the epilogue! Yeah, I was really quick with this one, but the writing just kept flowing for this chapter so I guess I got it done much quicker than anticipated, haha.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, guys!

Pulling up in front of the second house, Gibbs had a doubtful expression on his face. Despite the fact that over the past couple of months the children had reportedly been seeing more of Petty Officer Anderson, he highly doubted that they would go to her if they were running away. But it was worth a shot asking her anyway, and it was better if he exhausted all of his options instead of just dismissing them.

Climbing out of the car, Gibbs shut the door behind him before briskly walking up to the front door, rapping his knuckles on it. When there was no answer, he knocked again. "Petty Officer Anderson?"

He suspected it was the call that got her to answer the door, dressed in a nightgown in the middle of the day and looking rather dishevelled. Blinking, she appeared surprised to see Gibbs. "Special Agent Gibbs, to what pleasure do I owe this visit?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at her. "Is this a bad time?"

She pursed her lips, seeming to consider her answer for a moment. "…Yes… but we can make this quick, right?"

"Right."

"Is there a problem?"

"Have you been in contact with Andrew or Jessica recently?"

She blinked, seemingly surprised at the question. "…Not for at least a week. Why?"

"The foster home they've been staying at have reported them missing."

The woman's eyes widened. "And you think I have something to do with it?"

"I think you're one of a few options the children had."

Glancing back into the house, the petty officer sighed before turning back to Gibbs. "Look," she started, "even though I keep in contact with the kids and talk to them fairly often, I've made it clear to both you and them that I wouldn't be all that willing to take them in. I don't have the experience or the time. Andrew knows this. Jessica knows this. Neither of them would run to me if they were running away from that home, trust me."

"So you haven't heard anything from them at all?"

"Not since last week, no." The expression on her face softened for a moment as she looked at the agent. "Honestly… I feel as if they would go to someone they formed a connection with, someone they trust. And I'm not that person. I'm sorry."

Nodding, Gibbs took a step back. "Thank you, Petty Officer Anderson." Turning, he lifted a hand in farewell as he headed back to his car. "Have fun."

The Petty Officer's face flushed red for a moment, before she shut her front door.

Gibbs sighed as he sat back in the car, not starting it right away.

Both of his locations were void of those two children. Neither location seemed to be good enough for those children, apparently, and he was stuck. He never liked to admit that he was stuck, but he was actually stuck. He didn't know where they'd go, what they'd do. He hadn't… he hadn't spent enough time with them to know.

Feeling his phone buzzing in his pocket, he pulled it out to reveal a call he was getting from Ziva. He flipped the phone open and put it to his ear. "Talk to me."

" _I have got very little, Gibbs. The teachers did not really speak to the children all that much. They report that they kept to themselves, got quieter, and did not really interact in class. The school counsellors also explained that they were very quiet in their meetings, and did not give that much away,_ " Ziva explained. " _However, as I was walking around the high school, I bumped into a pair who claimed that they knew Andrew. They told me that they were two children who had managed to get out of the system and into a foster home, where they are currently being cared for. They explained that they knew Andrew from middle school, and that he had supposedly been talking of running away for a while. I do not know what straw broke his back, but whatever it is hurt him enough to finally make him want to run away._ "

Gibbs pursed his lips at the report. Useful, he had to admit, but he was no closer to finding them. "Alright, David, head back to the office and see if you can help out McGee."

" _Yes, Gibbs._ "

"And keep an eye out as you drive back."

" _Will do_."

As soon as he ended the call, another one came through from Tony, and he answered right away. "What've you got?"

" _Uh, not as much as I hoped, boss._ " There was a ruffling in the background. " _Kids left most of their stuff here – only really took toiletries and some clothes. All of their homework, papers, anything related to school – it's still here._ "

"Anything useful, DiNozzo?"

" _Actually, I think I might have something. Under Jessica's bed I found a bunch of drawings, none of them coloured in. I'm tellin' you now, she's gonna be a real artist—_ "

"DiNozzo!"

" _Sorry, boss, got carried away there. Anyway, a lot of the pictures seem to be centred around family. One is a drawing of what I'm guessing is her old room, another of her and her parents and brother, another of their house… but there's a couple of pictures here of your place, boss. And of us. And of you._ "

Gibbs was quiet for a moment as he let that sink in. Jessica drawing pictures wasn't that strange – he knew the girl enjoyed drawing, and he knew the girl was well on her way to becoming a pretty talented artist. But the fact that she wasn't just drawing pictures of her home and her family but of  _him_  and  _his team_ … suddenly he was beginning to have an idea of where the kids could have gone. It wasn't solid, but it was an idea at least.

"Anything else, DiNozzo?" he asked as he started the car.

" _Uh, yeah. I haven't finished looking through everything here, but… Abby called. McGee told her and she's trying to contact you._ "

Gibbs just sighed. "Call me if you find anything else."

" _Got it, boss._ "

As his luck would have it, as soon as he ended that call another came through – the expected call from Abby.

" _Gibbs! Why didn't you tell me?!_ "

"Hey, Abs," Gibbs greeted, a small smile on his face.

" _Don't you 'Hey Abs' me! I can't believe you didn't tell me about Andrew and Jessica being missing! I had to find out from McGee! You've got to tell me these things, Gibbs!_ "

"I didn't want to worry you, Abs."

" _Well now I'm super worried! Because I don't have any idea where they could be! Well, actually, that's a lie. I kinda told Ducky about it because I needed to rant about it to someone else who hadn't been told about the kids running away, and we started thinking about where they could've gone. I was gonna suggest their school and stuff and then Ducky said it was likely they'd go somewhere they're attached to… so we started thinking. And there are only two places they'd be attached to. Their parents' home had everything removed and put into storage until the kids are old enough to claim it all and then the actual home was sold on… which leaves your place._ "

From the moment Tony had mentioned the pictures, Gibbs had a feeling about that. "What?"

" _Your place is where they stayed when they were under witness protection, Gibbs. You took care of them, provided them with shelter, and they must've at least had some good memories there, right?_ "

Gibbs momentarily thought back to the nights where Andrew would wake from a nightmare and spend an hour or so down in the basement with him, until he was literally falling asleep on his feet and Gibbs took him back to bed. The mornings where Jessica would come downstairs nervously, only to find Gibbs had already made some sort of breakfast for her to eat before school. The few times Jessica had actually been comfortable enough to let Gibbs put her to bed.

It suddenly all clicked.

"Thanks, Abs. Put your next Caf! Pow on my tab," Gibbs said as he put the car into drive beginning to head off to his next destination.

" _Not a problem, bossman._ "

Flipping his phone shut, Gibbs began to speed off to his next destination.

His home.

* * *

Ziva sighed as she reached the bullpen, throwing her coat and bag down at her desk with frustration before heading over to McGee (who had been startled by the sudden noise she'd made with her appearance). "I found barely anything."

McGee raised an eyebrow as he glanced over at Ziva, before turning back to his screen. "Barely anything?"

"Basically nothing."

McGee sighed. "Pretty much same here," he admitted. "I mean, I found the kids of the traffic cams leaving the home, but I keep losing them. It's like they keep bouncing around so that no one stays on their trail or anything."

She frowned as she leaned on the back of his seat, looking over his shoulder at the screen in front of them both. "You mean, they are taking and very long and winded path?"

McGee nodded. "It seems like it."

She leaned in closer as he eyes scanned the screen, her brows furrowing. "Have you tried lining up the traffic cams to places they know of? It is most likely they will go to a place that is familiar to them both."

"But we don't exactly know of all the places they—"

"Guys, guys, guys!"

Both agents looked up when they heard Abby bounding into the bullpen, an excited expression on her face. An excited expression that looked very out of place considering what was going on with the kids and such – even more so since she'd found out after they'd all gone out to start looking for the kids and she had been both worried and upset that she'd been one of the last to find out what was going on.

"Are you alright, Abby?" Ziva asked as she stood from where she was leaning over McGee's shoulder, her brows furrowing. From the concerned look on McGee's face, he was just as confused about what was going on as she was.

"I just spoke to Gibbs!" she explained as she stood in front of McGee's desk, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I just spoke to Gibbs because I was talking to Ducky about the kids and we realised something really important – well, Ducky realised something really important but I put the clues together in the end – and we had to tell him and now I'm gonna tell you guys!" She paused for a moment, frowning at the other two. "What are you guys doing?"

"Still looking at traffic cams, Abby," McGee answered slowly.

"Okay, okay, look at cameras near Gibbs' house! I wanna see if my theory is right."

McGee's brows furrowed, but Ziva's eyes widened in realisation. "Of course!"

McGee looked over his shoulder at her. "What?"

"The children would go to a place that is familiar with them, no? Somewhere they have been most recently, even if they are not there any longer. A place where they would have formed good memories."

It finally seemed to click in McGee's mind, and he quickly began typing away at his computer, suddenly more energised about his search for the children. "Are we gonna estimate a time they would've turned up there?" he asked, bringing up footage from the cameras nearest to Gibbs' house.

"They likely would have arrived today," Ziva pointed out, leaning over McGee's char again. "If they had arrived yesterday, Gibbs would have realised."

"Got it." He leaned closer to the screen, focusing on it intently. "Let's get searching, then."

* * *

Gibbs barely even looked around as he approached his front door, opening it straight away – slowly, but straight away. And almost immediately he noticed the slight differences in the environment. The floor was slightly muddy, items had been moved slightly on the surfaces and from what he could see…

The basement door was open.

Shutting the front door, he proceeded to the basement door, glancing around before slowly opening it more and walking through the doorway.

It was dark, and almost silent, but Gibbs could definitely pick up the near silent sounds of breathing coming from somewhere in the dark room. Walking down the stairs, he kept his eyes alert (despite the fact that it wasn't all too bright and he couldn't see much) in case he spotted the children before he reached the base.

Though, he didn't say anything until he reached the floor of the basement, standing in the middle of the room.

"I called it the  _Parkson_ , you know," Gibbs said out loud, hands in his pockets as he stood casually, not even glancing around to see if anyone was moving. Waiting a few moments to see if anyone would say anything, he spoke out again. "Thought it would be fitting, since you both built it with me."

There were a few moments of silence, before a meek voice said, "Where did it go?"

"I put it where it belonged," Gibbs answered, smiling slightly at the thought of not having to burn another boat for a while.

Said boat was currently resting with the rest of the children's owned items, in storage until they were old enough to claim them. An idea their parents had come up with a while back, but had put into place with the idea that they may be killed in action – not when they were on leave.

There were another few moments of quiet before there was a shuffling, and Gibbs noticed one shadow was moving more than the others.

"Did you burn it like Tony says you do…?" an even smaller voice asked, sounding almost scared.

Gibbs turned towards the shadow slowly, kneeling down to a height that he knew Jessica could reach – a height that would make the little girl more comfortable. "Of course I didn't," he said softly. "I kept it just for you guys, because I knew you wanted it. I couldn't burn it."

There was a small sniffle, before suddenly someone leapt out of the shadow and latched themselves around Gibbs' neck. The grey-haired man wrapped his arms around the small figure, hugging Jessica warmly.

"We were so worried about you both," he said softly, though it didn't take a genius to realise that he meant that he was the most worried about the two.

Jessica buried her face in his neck. "We missed you," she mumbled quietly.

Hearing another shuffle, Gibbs moved to stand, carrying Jessica in his embrace and allowing her to rest on his shoulder. As soon as he stood, he was met with an extremely nervous Andrew looking anywhere but at him, scratching his bare arms. The two stood there for a few moments, staring at each other.

"We didn't mean to worry you Gibbs," Andrew said quietly, suddenly looking away and focusing down on his feet. "We just… we didn't like it there and we weren't happy and we wanted to be happy so we decided to find somewhere we thought we'd be happy and—"

"Andrew," Gibbs interrupted softly, waiting for the teen to look up at him.

"Do we have to go back…?" the teen asked nervously, sounding like he was on the verge of crying.

Gibbs just held out his arm, and allowed the teen to walk into the hug, holding him close as Andrew buried his face in his chest. It was after a few moments of silence that Gibbs finally spoke, the barest of smiles on his face.

"What if I told you your stay there might be shorter than you think?"


	28. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, guys! The epilogue for The Gibbs Project! Thank you guys for sticking by me through this whole rewrite - it's taken me a lot of time, but I've finally managed to do it! Anyway, I hope you guys have enjoyed reading it, and I hope you guys enjoy this (super long) epilogue I've written! I just couldn't stop writing, because I wanted to tie up a fair bit and include stuff I'd written in the epilogue for the original, but I've got it out for you guys!
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

It took another half a year or so before everything finally went through. It was six months of waiting, of calls, of interviews, of talks, before Gibbs was finally qualified to become a foster carer, and within those six months his agents had all found out, gossiped, and (quietly) teased Gibbs that he was becoming more of a softie by the day because of those children. Or, at least Tony teased. The other two sniggered and hid their smiles behind mounds of paperwork as they watched Tony get the scolds and the headslaps. Though… it wasn't as if Gibbs didn't know those two were also sniggering behind his back. He just preferred to let them keep wondering where their extra mounds of paperwork were coming from.

Once he was a fully certified foster carer, actually getting to take in the kids to foster was the next difficult step. There were a bunch of extra forms to sign, a whole load of meetings that should have gone smoothly but didn't because something or other came up, such as Gibbs having a case or a social worker not being able to make it to a meeting. A good couple of times, it was because Andrew had got into trouble and the social worker had to be called into a meeting at the school to sort things out with the principal – something Gibbs kind of wished he was doing (and kind of didn't because he didn't want to have to deal with a rebellious Andrew or regularly have to tell him off – after all, what parent  _did_?).

But, eventually, it was all sorted. Papers were signed and filed away, bags were packed, goodbyes were wished as the children left the home for what may or may not be the last time – after all, they were in the foster system. Andrew had that niggling reminder in the back of his mind that he could (and probably would) be returned to the home at any time; not because his parents wanted him, but because Gibbs  _didn't_. And that terrified him more than anything.

So much so that in that first month of the kids returning to the house, Andrew seemed to be on his absolute best behaviour… even to the point of cleaning.

Not that he was cleaning right.

"Hey," Gibbs called out, causing the teen to jump. "What are you doing?"

The teen glanced over at Gibbs shyly. "I'm… uh… cleaning the oven?"

Gibbs shook his head as he approached the teen, pulling him away from the appliance and pulling the cleaning products out of his hand. "No."

Andrew's brows furrowed. "…No…?"

"No, you do  _not_  clean the oven."

"You mean… not like that…?"

"I mean not at  _all_." Gibbs gave an exasperated sigh. "Why the hell do you think I'd want you to clean the oven?"

"W-well, uh… the other kids said—"

"Since when do you ever listen to what the other kids say?"

Andrew pursed his lips shut, scowling down at the floor in front of him. He had to admit… even though he didn't like it, Gibbs had a point. He never usually listened to what anyone else told him to do… ever. Heck, that usually got him in trouble. Why did he listen now…?

"Andrew, look, you don't have to—"

"The other kids said you'd send us back."

Gibbs went silent for a good few seconds at that. "…What?"

"The other kids… they said you'd send us back to the foster home if we… if we didn't…" Andrew took a shuddered breath. "If we didn't behave."

Gibbs' face hardened at that, before he noticed the slightly fearful look on Andrew's face and his expression softened. "Hey, listen to me: I'm not gonna send you back just because you mess up or misbehave, okay? I'm your foster  _parent_ ," he reminded the teen. "I'm meant to take care of you and teach you when you're doing things wrong. I'm  _not_  going to send you back if you aren't behaving. But I  _am_  going to pick up on if you aren't acting like yourself," he finished, poking the teen lightly in the chest.

The light poke brought a smile out of Andrew. "So… I don't have to clean at all…?"

"Only your room." Gibbs chuckled at the look of disappointment on Andrew's face and ruffled the teen's hair. "Nice try, Andy."

The use of nickname instead of his full name made Andrew's eyes widen. "You said, 'Andy'…"

Gibbs looked thoughtful for a moment, before he shrugged, sending Andrew a small smile. "Huh, I guess I did." Turning to walk away, Gibbs didn't miss the smile that grew on the teen's face as he stripped off the apron and gloves he wore before following him… presumably to the basement.

Despite their growing closeness, however, the first month was difficult.

Nightmares plagued both children every night, and whilst Jessica was easy enough for Gibbs to comfort with hugs and gentle words of reassurance most nights, Andrew's screams of pain were haunting. The lack of sleep affected them all – Gibbs was almost always up to comfort them, Jessica was afraid to sleep half the time, and Andrew struggled to sleep after his nightmares.

But they continued to plough through. Jessica's nightmares eventually became less frequent through therapy – it took a good while, but when it began to work Gibbs was more than pleased.

Andrew, on the other hand, took much longer with the therapy. His original reluctance to actually attend the therapy, coupled with his frustration at the world in general and the fact that Jessica was much more responsive to it that he was, made it difficult for him to actually receive what Miss Bloomfield was telling him. Something that wore Gibbs down fairly quickly.

"I just don't get it!" the teen cried out in frustration one night, throwing one of Gibbs' sanders down in frustration. The older man simply watched him with a raised eyebrow, sipping from his mug of coffee. Despite the fact that they were in the basement, he was slightly worried that Andrew's frustrations would eventually wake up his younger sister, who was finally getting a good night's slep.

Or maybe that was what the teen wanted.

"How come  _she's_  improving, but not me?! It's not  _fair_!" The boy looked as if he was ready to pretty much rip his hair out. "It's not fair that I  _keep_  getting nightmares when she doesn't! It's not fair that she's happier than I am! It's not… it's not…" That's when Gibbs noticed the frustrated tears in the teen's eyes, and he placed his mug down. "It's not fair, Gibbs! Why… why can't I do it…?"

Gibbs approached the teen slowly, gently wrapping his arms around his shoulders and rubbing his back. "Hey, it's alright. Everyone recovers at a different rate. You can't expect yourself to be the same as someone else – don't compare yourself to your sister."

"But she's younger than me…"

"And doesn't understand some things as well as you do. It hurts more because you understand what happened better than she did. And once you come to grips with that… maybe things will start to change with you too." He pulled away from Andrew to look him in the eye. "Just promise me you won't stop attending those shrink sessions, alright?"

Andrew hesitated for a few moments, but eventually he nodded, looking saddened for a moment before hardening his face and nodding. "Alright."

Gibbs gave him a single nod, resisting the urge to ruffle his hair.  _That kid is almost like a soldier, he is_.

* * *

It was following this that things slowly began to improve for Andrew himself. Not as quickly as his sister, obviously, but they did improve. He began to speak more around other people, not as snippy or cold as he was before, and actually managed to make some new friends: Jon and Terry, two foster kids he had met briefly at the home before they'd been returned to their guardian (who was technically their step-mother, but they called her their aunt); Sharon, or rather, Ashley, an African American girl who constantly flickered between the two names to confuse people because her parents couldn't decide which one to give her (and she didn't exactly like either name); Kate, a quiet, nerdy girl, and her "goth" boyfriend, Derek, who were more often than not found out on the grass, simply laying there with each other as one read and the other napped; and Peter, a total engineering nerd who Andrew quickly learnt not to let near live flames or bare wires and electricity. A solid friendship group for himself and Alice – a friendship group who were more than willing to support him in anything and everything, as long as death wasn't involved.

Well, Alice would follow him into anything and everything. He trusted her immensely, and she trusted him almost as much, considering everything they'd been through since the death of his parents. In fact, Andrew didn't even notice anything strange about their closeness and how "touchy-feely" Alice was with him until Tony mentioned it in the bullpen, after Alice had walked with Andrew up to the office and left him there, giving him a kiss on the cheek farewell. Something that Andrew was more than used to, but Tony was definitely not used to seeing.

"So when are you going to ask her out for coffee?" DiNozzo asked, causing Andrew to pause, a frown on his face.

"…We always go for sodas after school…?" he offered as he set his bags down at Gibbs' desk, moving to sit in the agent's chair. The scoff from Tony told him that that wasn't the answer he wanted.

"No, I mean for  _coffee_ ," the agent emphasised. It took a few more moments for Andrew to finally realise what the agent meant, but as soon as he had, his face turned bright red.

"I'm not going to." The teen moved to get his homework out of his bag, pulling it onto the desk and pulling out a pen and a pencil; Jessica was going to arrive soon, since Gibbs was picking her up, and he wanted to be able to help her with her homework this time.

Tony raised an eyebrow at the boy, watching him attempt to get on with his work and ignore the agent. "You're not going to."

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Because."

Tony scoffed. "That's not a good enough reason."

"Leave him alone, Tony," McGee said simply as he continued to fill out his paperwork. "He doesn't want to be bothered about this."

"No, McMommy, this is a real issue," Tony protested. "Our little brother here—"

"Little brother?" Andrew asked with a frown.

"—isn't confident enough to ask out the girl he likes," Tony continued, pretending he hadn't even heard her. "That, my friend, is a huge problem."

"It's not a problem at all!" Andrew protested. "She doesn't like me that way!"

"Oh, really? Then how do you explain the kisses?"

"She does it as a friend. She always has."

"She only started a couple of weeks ago, Andrew."

The teen's frown simply deepened. He hadn't even noticed when Alice had started – only accepted it as some sort of friendship and moved on with it. He didn't read into it or anything; after all, it wasn't as if he had to, right?

Clearly, Tony thought he was wrong.

"Andrew, she  _likes_  you. Like,  _like_  likes you." Tony looked over at McGee. "Ain't that right, McGoo?"

Andrew looked over to McGee for confirmation. Surely the younger agent wasn't in agreement with Tony…

McGee shrugged. "All the signs are pointing to it, Andrew. There's nothing really to suggest otherwise."

Andrew pursed his lips and sighed. "So… what do I do?"

"Ask her out for coffee, like I suggested," Tony responded simply.

"I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"What if she doesn't even like coffee?"

"You won't know if you don't find out."

"What if she's always busy and can't make time for me?"

"She'll be able to make time – pretty sure she's more flexible than you think."

"What if she doesn't actually  _like_  me?"

Both men gave him a look.

Andrew sighed. He supposed he'd lost this one. Though… his behaviour surprised the agents. Where the teen would've usually fought back almost violently and yelled at the two for pushing and stormed out, Andrew had… resigned? As if he'd understood what they'd meant and given in before fighting back and hurting anyone.

On the inside, Tony and McGee both smiled.

Andrew was improving somewhat.

* * *

It was on the next school day that Andrew decided it was time to pluck up the courage and get it over with. Or rather, he was only doing it then because he knew for a fact that if he didn't, Tony (and maybe McGee) would pester him until he did. His palms were sweaty as he walked down the corridor with Peter, heading for his locker, which happened to be right next to Alice's. He and Peter had just finished Physics class, and now he was heading to English class with Alice – well, he shared the class with all of his friends, but he'd been with Alice in this class the longest and he knew her well, so she was more of a comfort than the rest of them.

Especially since they were supposed to be starting a project that day.

Despite the fact that he had this at the forefront of his mind, Andrew had something else lingering back there. Something about a set of papers he'd spotted laying about on the coffee table in the lounge that morning. He hadn't meant to see them, but… well, he'd taken a peek at them, and a good couple of words had jumped out at him.

The main one being  _adoption_.

It both troubled and confused him. After all, why would Gibbs be thinking of adoption? Would someone else be coming into the house? But Gibbs wasn't thinking of any other kids – he was busy enough as it was with himself and Jessica; two traumatised children who needed a lot of help to survive most days.

Which meant the adoption papers… well, they had to be for him and Jessica, right?

Was Gibbs going to adopt them?

The fact that his and Jessica's full names had been scribbled on a post-it note and stuck to the top of the pile of papers was kind of the answer to that question.

Andrew didn't realise how far he'd walked until he ended up bumping into someone… that someone being Alice.

"Andy!"

He stumbled back, eyes wide. "Oh, damn, sorry Alice!"

The girl scoffed at him, though there was a smile on her face. She wasn't really as annoyed as she appeared, obviously, and she simply laughed as she turned back to her locker, beginning to get out the books she needed for the next couple of periods. "Just watch where you're going next time, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Don't just say that. You don't mean it."

"Of course I mean it!"

"Oh really?"

Andrew rolled his eyes at her challenge. He loved her banter sometimes – it was amusing to have someone so close who didn't treat him as if he was fragile, honestly.

That was when his conversation with Tony came to mind, and he resisted the urge to take a deep breath. Because if he did, Alice would know that something was wrong.

Not that she wouldn't work it out anyway, but you know.

"Uh… Alice?" he asked hesitantly. When she looked over at him, he almost felt like giving in right there. He couldn't do this. She was his best friend. What if she said no? What if she laughed at him? He couldn't handle that kind of rejection from anybody, let alone her.

But then… he wouldn't live it down if he didn't do it. He would regret it always. So he took a deep breath (despite what he'd told himself before) and continued.

"Would you…" he started, trailing off for a moment before trying again. "Would you… um…" The fact that she now had her eyebrow raised only made him more nervous, and he kicked himself for letting it take this long. "Would you like to… to grab—"

"Coffee sometime?" she finished for him, a small smirk on her face even though her cheeks were dusted a light pink. When he simply nodded, his cheeks flushing a darker pink than hers, she laughed lightly. "Yeah, sure. Just give me a date and time, and I can meet you."

Part of Andrew's nerves melted away, but the part of him that still thought she was only thinking of this as some sort of friendship thing was nagging at him, so he cleared his throat again before speaking. "So… it's a date?"

Her smile widened at that, and she ducked her head down for a moment in embarrassment, her cheeks darkening. When she looked back up at him, she was beaming.

"It's a date."

Just then, the bell signalling that they had five minutes to reach their next class rang, and Andrew's eyes widened as he hurriedly opened his locker and grabbed his books out before slamming it shut. Alice just laughed as she began to head off towards their class, looking back over her shoulder to see whether Andrew was following.

He shook her head at her, rolling his eyes, before running to catch up with her. "What, you couldn't wait?"

"I don't want you to be the reason I'm late."

"You never minded me being the reason you skipped classes back in middle school."

"Oh, shut up."

* * *

Out of all his classes, English was surprisingly one of Andrew's favourites; not just because he got to sit next to Alice, but because of his teacher, Mr Bates. The man was half-Canadian on his dad's side, and a total sucker for anything poetic or artistic; a fact that Andrew had used multiple times since the start of the year to win himself some brownie points. Jon called him a teacher's pet.

"Alright, class, listen up – Terry, I said shut up. Class is starting," Mr Bates aimed at one of the twins, causing the class to laugh as he turned around in his desk to face the front.

"This year, we're going to do a project." At the groans he received in response, the teacher rolled his eyes. "I know, I know. We've already started the year, and we're well into it already. But this is a project I don't want back any time soon. Apparently it's some sort of school health awareness thing they're trying out, blah blah blah." He gave a small smile at the laughs he received at that before continuing. "Anyway, this project is meant to be completed by the end of your junior year. It's long, I know, but I'm going to be sticking around with you guys for a while so it's okay." He moved to the chalkboard, picking up a piece of chalk and beginning to write on it. "You project is going to be on anything that's impacted your life; that's any major event, any catastrophe, anything that could have affected you seriously enough to leave lasting damage. And what I want you to do with this is to take this event, and everything around it, and write about it and what has stemmed from it. Well, not necessarily write, but describe. Explain. Show me how it's impacted you. I want to know the effects it's had on you, positive and negative. And I want to see everyone's development and change over time."

Kate's hand shot up. "Like a diary, Mr Bates?" she asked.

"Yes, exactly, Kate."

"Can it be virtual?" Peter called out from his seat at the back, where he seemed to be fiddling with some sort of motor-controlled device.

"As long as you manage to concentrate in my classes, Peter."

Everyone laughed as the boy blushed and shoved the device away, hiding it from view.

"Any more questions?"

Andrew raised his hand hesitantly, waiting for the teacher to nod at him before speaking. "Is this project aimed at anyone in particular, Mr Bates?"

It didn't take a genius to realise that Andrew was asking whether the project had been set because of him – because some teacher out there was really worried about him and his progress and wanted him to vent in some way or another.

Mr Bates' lips quirked up into a half-smile; it looked mischievous, as if the man knew something that the rest of the class didn't.

"Not at all, Andrew."

The teen simply nodded as he placed his hand back in his lap.

"No more questions? Alright then; you can use this lesson to start any planning for your project. In the next two weeks, I want to be seeing plans and ideas you have for where you want this thing to take you. Get to work!"

Almost immediately there was excited chatter around the room. The idea of a project where you were allowed to do anything, a project that would take them at least a year to complete, excited everyone immensely. Even Alice was a lot more bright eyed in the class than usual, chatting to Sharon (she was Sharon today, Andrew had to remember that) about possible ideas she had for her project – maybe a hand-stitched doll's navy uniform, or a little hat. Something that had affected her all her life.

_Navy…_

Andrew's brow furrowed at that thought. Could he… could he do something with that? Maybe he could. After all, it was pretty obvious what his traumatic event would be… but how could he design it? How could he make it his own?

And then it hit him.

Quickly opening his notebook, he began to sketch on a page, focused intently on what was in front of him and not looking up until he was done. After all, if things… if things were heading in the direction he thought they were headed, he had a damn good idea.

He jumped sky-high when he heard Alice's voice at his shoulder: "What've you got there, Andy?"

Andrew closed his eye tightly, taking a deep breath to calm himself down, before looking over at Alice. She looked genuinely curious as to what he was doing – after all, he rarely seemed so focused. So he glanced around to see whether anyone else was looking, before tilting his paper so that she could see what was on there.

On the sheet, what looked like a house had been drawn – one of those traditional, quaint houses, the ones with the white picket fences and the green yards where children could play for hours on end. Though, from the annotation Andrew had written, the house wasn't just any house, but a  _wooden_  house. A house to be carved out of wood, set on some sort of surface that would act like a plaque.

And along that surface, Andrew had written three words to be etched in:

_The Gibbs Project_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for The Gibbs Project! Thanks for reading!


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